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THE   IRON  HEEL 


REPRODUCED   FROM   JACK   LONDON'S   LAST    PHOTOGRAPH 


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THE  WORKS  OF 


JACK  LONDON 


THE  IRON  HEEL 


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THE  REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS  COMPANY 

NEW    YORK 

1917 


Copyright,  igotf. 
By   JACK    LONDON. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.      Published  Februaiy>  igofj.     Reprinted 
March,  September,  1908  ;  January,  1509  ;  February,  May,  November, 
1910 ;  October,  1911  ;   February,  September,  1913;  September,  1917. 


(JTDP 


"At  first,  this  Earth,  a  stage  so  gloomed  with  woe 
You  almost  sicken  at  tbe  shifting  of  the  scenes. 
And  yet  be  patient.     Our  Playwright  may  show 
In  some  fifth  act  what  this  Wild  Drama  means." 


CONTENTS 

PAGK 

Foreword ,     .       .        .  ix 

CHAPTER 

I.    My  Eagle 1 

II.    Challenges 22 

III.  Johnson's  Arm 43 

IV.  Slaves  of  the  Machine 5& 

V.     The  Philomaths          .  ' 78 

VI.     Adumbrations 100 

VII.    The  Bishop's  Vision Ill 

VIII.     The  Machine  Breakers 120 

IX.  The  Mathematics  of  a  Dream       ....  141 

X.    The  Vortex 163 

XL    The  Great  Adventure 177 

XII.     The  Bishop 188 

XIII.  The  General  Strike 204 

XIV.  The  Beginning  of  the  End 217 

XV.    Last  Days 229 

XVI.    The  End 237 

XVII.     The  Scarlet  Livery  .    < 251 

XVIII.    In  the  Shadow  of  Sonoma 262 

XIX.     Transformation 274 

XX.    A  Lost  Oligarch 286 

XXL    The  Roaring  Abysmal  Beast 297 

XXII.    The  Chicago  Commune 306 

XXIII.  The  People  of  the  Abyss 324 

XXIV.  Nightmare 343 

XXV.    The  Terrorists 352 


vu 


FOREWORD 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Everhard  Manuscript 
is  an  important  historical  document.  To  the  historian 
it  bristles  with  errors  —  not  errors  of  fact,  but  errors 
of  interpretation.  Looking  back  across  the  seven  cen- 
turies that  have  lapsed  since  Avis  Everhard  completed 
her  manuscript,  events,  and  the  bearings  of  events, 
that  were  confused  and  veiled  to  her,  are  clear  to  us. 
She  lacked  perspective.  She  was  too  close  to  the  events 
she  writes  about.  Nay,  she  was  merged  in  the  events 
she  has  described. 

Nevertheless,  as  a  personal  document,  the  Everhard 
Manuscript  is  of  inestimable  value.  But  here  again 
enter  error  of  perspective,  and  vitiation  due  to  the  bias 
of  love.  Yet  we  smile,  indeed,  and  forgive  Avis  Ever- 
hard  for  the  heroic  lines  upon  which  she  modelled  her 
husband.  We  know  to-day  that  he  was  not  so  colossal, 
and  that  he  loomed  among  the  events  of  his  times  less 
largely  than  the  Manuscript  would  lead  us  to  believe. 

We  know  that  Ernest  Everhard  was  an  exceptionally 
strong  man,  but  not  so  exceptional  as  his  wife  thought 
him  to  be.  He  was,  after  all,  but  one  of  a  large  number 
of  heroes  who,  throughout  the  world,  devoted  their 
lives  to  the  Revolution;   though  it  must  be  conceded 


X  FOREWORD 

that  he  did  unusual  work,  especially  in  his  elaboration 
and  interpretation  of  working-class  philosophy.  "Pro- 
letarian science  "  and  "  proletarian  philosophy"  were 
his  phrases  for  it,  and  therein  he  shows  the  provincial- 
ism of  his  mind  —  a  defect,  however,  that  was  due  to 
the  times  and  that  none  in  that  day  could  escape. 

But  to  return  to  the  Manuscript.  Especially  valu- 
able is  it  in  communicating  to  us  the  feel  of  those  terrible 
times.  Nowhere  do  we  find  more  vividly  portrayed 
the  psychology  of  the  persons  that  lived  in  that  turbu- 
lent period  embraced  between  the  years  1912  and  1932 
—  their  mistakes  and  ignorance,  their  doubts  and  fears 
and  misapprehensions,  their  ethical  delusions,  their 
violent  passions,  their  inconceivable  sordidness  and  self- 
ishness. These  are  the  things  that  are  so  hard  for  us 
of  this  enlightened  age  to  understand.  History  tells 
us  that  these  things  were,  and  biology  and  psychology 
tell  us  why  they  were ;  but  history  and  biology  and  psy- 
chology do  not  make  these  things  alive.  We  accept 
them  as  facts,  but  we  are  left  without  sympathetic 
comprehension  of  them. 

This  sympathy  comes  to  us,  however,  as  we  peruse 
the  Everhard  Manuscript.  We  enter  into  the  minds  of 
the  actors  in  that  long-ago  world-drama,  and  for  the 
time  being  their  mental  processes  are  our  mental  pro- 
cesses. Not  alone  do  we  understand  Avis  Everhard's 
love  for  her  hero-husband,  but  we  feel,  as  he  felt, 
in  those  first  days,  the  vague  and  terrible  loom  of  the 


FOREWORD  xi 

Oligarchy.  The  Iron  Heel  (well  named)  we  feel  de- 
scending upon  and  crushing  mankind. 

And  in  passing  we  note  that  that  historic  phrase, 
the  Iron  Heel,  originated  in  Ernest  Everhard's  mind. 
This,  we  may  say,  is  the  one  moot  question  that  this 
new-found  document  clears  up.  Previous  to  this,  the 
earliest-known  use  of  the  phrase  occurred  in  the  pam- 
phlet, "Ye  Slaves,"  written  by  George  Milford  and 
published  in  December,  1912.  This  George  Milford 
was  an  obscure  agitator  about  whom  nothing  is  known, 
save  the  one  additional  bit  of  information  gained  from 
the  Manuscript,  which  mentions  that  he  was  shot  in  the 
Chicago  Commune.  Evidently  he  had  heard  Ernest 
Everhard  make  use  of  the  phrase  in  some  public  speech, 
most  probably  when  he  was  running  for  Congress  in  the 
fall  of  1912.  From  the  Manuscript  we  learn  that  Ever- 
hard  used  the  phrase  at  a  private  dinner  in  the  spring 
of  1912.  This  is,  without  discussion,  the  earliest-known 
occasion  on  which  the  Oligarchy  was  so  designated. 

The  rise  of  the  Oligarchy  will  always  remain  a  cause 
of  secret  wonder  to  the  historian  and  the  philosopher. 
Other  great  historical  events  have  their  place  in  social 
evolution.  They  were  inevitable.  Their  coming  could 
have  been  predicted  with  the  same  certitude  that  as- 
tronomers to-day  predict  the  outcome  of  the  move- 
ments of  stars.  Without  these  other  great  historical 
events,  social  evolution  could  not  have  proceeded. 
Primitive   communism,   chattel   slavery,   serf  slavery, 


xii  FOREWORD 

and  wage  slavery  were  necessary  stepping-stones  in  the 
evolution  of  society.  But  it  were  ridiculous  to  assert 
that  the  Iron  Heel  was  a  necessary  stepping-stone. 
Rather,  to-day,  is  it  adjudged  a  step  aside,  or  a  step 
backward,  to  the  social  tyrannies  that  made  the  early 
world  a  hell,  but  that  were  as  necessary  as  the  Iron  Heel 
was  unnecessary. 

Black  as  Feudalism  was,  yet  the  coming  of  it  was 
inevitable.  What  else  than  Feudalism  could  have  fol- 
lowed upon  the  breakdown  of  that  great  centralized 
governmental  machine  known  as  the  Roman  Empire? 
Not  so,  however,  with  the  Iron  Heel.  In  the  orderly 
procedure  of  social  evolution  there  was  no  place  for  it. 
It  was  not  necessary,  and  it  was  not  inevitable.  It 
must  always  remain  the  great  curiosity  of  history  —  a 
whim,  a  fantasy,  an  apparition,  a  thing  unexpected  and 
undreamed ;  and  it  should  serve  as  a  warning  to  those 
rash  political  theorists  of  to-day  who  speak  with  cer- 
titude of  social  processes. 

Capitalism  was  adjudged  by  the  sociologists  of  the 
time  to  be  the  culmination  of  bourgeois  rule,  the  ripened 
fruit  of  the  bourgeois  revolution.  And  we  of  to-day 
can  but  applaud  that  judgment.  Following  upon 
Capitalism,  it  was  held,  even  by  such  intellectual  and 
antagonistic  giants  as  Herbert  Spencer,  that  Socialism 
would  come.  Out  of  the  decay  of  self-seeking  capital- 
ism, it  was  held,  would  arise  that  flower  of  the  ages, 
the  Brotherhood  of  Man.     Instead  of  which,  appalling 


FOREWORD  xiii 

alike  to  us  who  look  back  and  to  those  that  lived  at  the 
time,  capitalism,  rotten-ripe,  sent  forth  that  monstrous 
offshoot,  the  Oligarchy. 

Too  late  did  the  socialist  movement  of  the  early 
twentieth  century  divine  the  coming  of  the  Oligarchy. 
Even  as  it  was  divined,  the  Oligarchy  was  there  —  a  fact 
established  in  blood,  a  stupendous  and  awful  reality. 
Nor  even  then,  as  the  Everhard  Manuscript  well  shows, 
was  any  permanence  attributed  to  the  Iron  Heel.  Its 
overthrow  was  a  matter  of  a  few  short  years,  was  the 
judgment  of  the  revolutionists.  It  is  true,  they  realized 
that  the  Peasant  Revolt  was  unplanned,  and  that  the 
First  Revolt  was  premature ;  but  they  little  realized 
that  the  Second  Revolt,  planned  and  mature,  was 
doomed  to  equal  futility  and  more  terrible  punishment. 

It  is  apparent  that  Avis  Everhard  completed  the 
Manuscript  during  the  last  days  of  preparation  for  the 
Second  Revolt ;  hence  the  fact  that  there  is  no  mention 
of  the  disastrous  outcome  of  the  Second  Revolt.  It  is 
quite  clear  that  she  intended  the  Manuscript  for  imme- 
diate publication,  as  soon  as  the  Iron  Heel  was  over- 
thrown, so  that  her  husband,  so  recently  dead,  should 
receive  full  credit  for  all  that  he  had  ventured  and  ac- 
complished. Then  came  the  frightful  crushing  of  the 
Second  Revolt,  and  it  is  probable  that  in  the  moment  of 
danger,  ere  she  fled  or  was  captured  by  the  Mercenaries, 
she  hid  the  Manuscript  in  the  hollow  oak  at  Wake 
Robin  Lodge. 


xiv  FOREWORD 

Of  Avis  Everhard  there  is  no  further  record.  Un- 
doubtedly she  was  executed  by  the  Mercenaries ;  and, 
as  is  well  known,  no  record  of  such  executions  was  kept 
by  the  Iron  Heel.  But  little  did  she  realize,  even  then, 
as  she  hid  the  Manuscript  and  prepared  to  flee,  how 
terrible  had  been  the  breakdown  of  the  Second  Revolt. 
Little  did  she  realize  that  the  tortuous  and  distorted 
evolution  of  the  next  three  centuries  would  compel  a 
Third  Revolt  and  a  Fourth  Revolt,  and  many  Revolts, 
all  drowned  in  seas  of  blood,  ere  the  world-movement 
of  labor  should  come  into  its  own.  And  little  did  she 
dream  that  for  seven  long  centuries  the  tribute  of  her 
love  to  Ernest  Everhard  would  repose  undisturbed  in 
the  heart  of  the  ancient  oak  at  Wake  Robin  Lodge. 

Anthony  Meredith. 

Arms, 

November  27,  419  B.O.M. 


THE  IRON  HEEL 


CHAPTER  I 

MY  EAGLE 

The  soft  summer  wind  stirs  the  redwoods,  and  Wild- 
Water  ripples  sweet  cadences  over  its  mossy  stones. 
There  are  butterflies  in  the  sunshine,  and  from  every- 
where arises  the  drowsy  hum  of  bees.  It  is  so  quiet 
and  peaceful,  and  I  sit  here,  and  ponder,  and  am  rest- 
less. It  is  the  quiet  that  makes  me  restless.  It  seems 
unreal.  All  the  world  is  quiet,  but  it  is  the  quiet  before 
the  storm.  I  strain  my  ears,  and  all  my  senses,  for 
some  betrayal  of  that  impending  storm.  Oh,  that  it 
may  not  be  premature  !   That  it  may  not  be  premature  ! 1 

Small  wonder  that  I  am  restless.  I  think,  and  think, 
and  I  cannot  cease  from  thinking.  I  have  been  in  the 
thick  of  life  so  long  that  I  am  oppressed  by  the  peace  and 
quiet,  and  I  cannot  forbear  from  dwelling  upon  that 

1  The  Second  Revolt  was  largely  the  work  of  Ernest  Everhard, 
though  he  cooperated,  of  course,  with  the  European  leaders.  The 
capture  and  secret  execution  of  Everhard  was  the  great  event  of  the 
spring  of  1932  a.d.  Yet  so  thoroughly  had  he  prepared  for  the  re- 
volt, that  his  fellow-conspirators  were  able,  with  little  confusion  or 
delay,  to  carry  out  his  plans.  It  was  after  Everhard' s  execution  that 
his  wife  went  to  Wake  Robin  Lodge,  a  small  bungalow  in  the  Sonoma 
Hills  of  California. 

b  1 


2  THE  IRON  HEEL 

mad  maelstrom  of  death  and  destruction  so  soon  to 
burst  forth.  In  my  ears  are  the  cries  of  the  stricken ; 
and  I  can  see,  as  I  have  seen  in  the  past/  all  the  marring 
and  mangling  of  the  sweet,  beautiful  flesh,  and  the  souls 
torn  with  violence  from  proud  bodies  and  hurled  to 
God.  Thus  do  we  poor  humans  attain  our  ends,  striv- 
ing through  carnage  and  destruction  to  bring  lasting 
peace  and  happiness  upon  the  earth. 

And  then  I  am  lonely.  When  I  do  not  think  of 
what  is  to  come,  I  think  of  what  has  been  and  is  no 
more  —  my  Eagle,  beating  with  tireless  wings  the  void, 
soaring  toward  what  was  ever  his  sun,  the  flaming  ideal 
of  human  freedom.  I  cannot  sit  idly  by  and  wait  the 
great  event  that  is  his  making,  though  he  is  not  here 
to  see.  He  devoted  all  the  years  of  his  manhood  to  it, 
and  for  it  he  gave  his  life.  It  is  his  handiwork.  He 
made  it.2 

And  so  it  is,  in  this  anxious  time  of  waiting,  that  I 
shall  write  of  my  husband.  There  is  much  light  that  I 
alone  of  all  persons  living  can  throw  upon  his  character, 
and  so  noble  a  character  cannot  be  blazoned  forth  too 
brightly.  His  was  a  great  soul,  and,  when  my  love 
grows  unselfish,  my  chiefest  regret  is  that  he  is  not  here 

1  Without  doubt  she  here  refers  to  the  Chicago  Commune. 

8  With  all  respect  to  Avis  Everhard,  it  must  be  pointed  out  that 
Everhard  was  but  one  of  many  able  leaders  who  planned  the  Second 
Revolt.  And  we,  to-day,  looking  back  across  the  centuries,  can 
safely  say  that  even  had  he  lived,  the  Second  Revolt  would  not  have 
been  less  calamitous  in  its  outcome  than  it  was. 


MY  EAGLE  3 

to  witness  to-morrow's  dawn.  We  cannot  fail.  He 
has  built  too  stoutly  and  too  surely  for  that.  Woe  to 
the  Iron  Heel !  Soon  shall  it  be  thrust  back  from  off 
prostrate  humanity.  When  the  word  goes  forth,  the 
labor  hosts  of  all  the  world  shall  rise.  There  has  been 
nothing  like  it  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  solidar- 
ity of  labor  is  assured,  and  for  the  first  time  will  there 
be  an  international  revolution  wide  as  the  world  is 
wide.1 

You  see,  I  am  full  of  what  is  impending.  I  have 
lived  it  day  and  night  utterly  and  for  so  long  that  it 
is  ever  present  in  my  mind.  For  that  matter,  I  can- 
not think  of  my  husband  without  thinking  of  it.  He 
was  the  soul  of  it,  and  how  can  I  possibly  separate  the 
two  in  thought  ? 

As  I  have  said,  there  is  much  light  that  I  alone  can 
throw  upon  his  character.  It  is  well  known  that  he 
toiled  hard  for  liberty  and  suffered  sore.  How  hard 
he  toiled  and  how  greatly  he  suffered,  I  well  know ;  for 
I  have  been  with  him  during  these  twenty  anxious  years 
and  I  know  his  patience,  his  untiring  effort,  his  infinite 

1  The  Second  Revolt  was  truly  international.  It  was  a  colossal 
plan —  too  colossal  to  be  wrought  by  the  genius  of  one  man  alone. 
Labor,  in  all  the  oligarchies  of  the  world,  was  prepared  to  rise  at  the 
signal.  Germany,  Italy,  France,  and  all  Australasia  were  labor 
countries  —  socialist  states.  They  were  ready  to  lend  aid  to  the 
revolution.  Gallantly  they  did ;  and  it  was  for  this  reason,  when  the 
Second  Revolt  was  crushed,  that  they,  too,  were  crushed  by  the  united 
oligarchies  of  the  world,  their  socialist  governments  being  replaced 
by  oligarchical  governments. 


4  THE  IRON  HEEL 

devotion  to  the  Cause  for  which,  only  two  months  gone, 
he  laid  down  his  life. 

I  shall  try  to  write  simply  and  to  tell  here  how  Ernest 
Everhard  entered  my  life  —  how  I  first  met  him,  how 
he  grew  until  I  became  a  part  of  him,  and  the  tre- 
mendous changes  he  wrought  in  my  life.  In  this  way 
may  you  look  at  him  through  my  eyes  and  learn  him 
as  I  learned  him  —  in  all  save  the  things  too  secret 
and  sweet  for  me  to  tell. 

It  was  in  February,  1912,  that  I  first  met  him,  when, 
as  a  guest  of  my  father's  1  at  dinner,  he  came  to  our 
house  in  Berkeley.  I  cannot  say  that  my  very  first 
impression  of  him  was  favorable.  He  was  one  of  many 
at  dinner,  and  in  the  drawing-room  where  we  gathered 
and  waited  for  all  to  arrive,  he  made  a  rather  incongru- 
ous appearance.  It  was  "preacher's  night,"  as  my 
father  privately  called  it,  and  Ernest  was  certainly  out 
of  place  in  the  midst  of  the  churchmen. 

In  the  first  place,  his  clothes  did  not  fit  him.  He 
wore  a  ready-made  suit  of  dark  cloth  that  was  ill 
adjusted  to  his  body.     In  fact,  no  ready-made  suit  of 

1  John  Cunningham,  Avis  Everhard' s  father,  was  a  professor  at  the 
State  University  at  Berkeley,  California.  His  chosen  field  was  phys- 
ics, and  in  addition  he  did  much  original  research  and  was  greatly 
distinguished  as  a  scientist.  His  chief  contribution  to  science  was  his 
studies  of  the  electron  and  his  monumental  work  on  the  "  Identifica- 
tion of  Matter  and  Energy,"  wherein  he  established,  beyond  cavil 
and  for  all  time,  that  the  ultimate  unit  of  matter  and  the  ultimate  unit 
of  force  were  identical.  This  idea  had  been  earlier  advanced,  but  not 
demonstrated,  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  other  students  in  the  new 
field  of  radio-activity. 


MY  EAGLE  5 

clothes  ever  could  fit  his  body.  And  on  this  night,  as 
always,  the  cloth  bulged  with  his  muscles,  while  the 
coat  between  the  shoulders,  what  of  the  heavy  shoulder- 
development,  was  a  maze  of  wrinkles.  His  neck  was 
the  neck  of  a  prize-fighter,1  thick  and  strong.  So  this 
was  the  social  philosopher  and  ex-horseshoer  my  father 
had  discovered,  was  my  thought.  And  he  certainly 
looked  it  with  those  bulging  muscles  and  that  bull- 
throat.  Immediately  I  classified  him  —  a  sort  of 
prodigy,  I  thought,  a  Blind  Tom  2  of  the  working  class. 

And  then,  when  he  shook  hands  with  me  !  His  hand- 
shake was  firm  and  strong,  but  he  looked  at  me  boldly 
with  his  black  eyes  —  too  boldly,  I  thought.  You  see, 
I  was  a  creature  of  environment,  and  at  that  time  had 
strong  class  instincts.  Such  boldness  on  the  part  of  a 
man  of  my  own  class  would  have  been  almost  unfor- 
givable. I  know  that  I  could  not  avoid  dropping  my 
eyes,  and  I  was  quite  relieved  when  I  passed  him  on 
and  turned  to  greet  Bishop  Morehouse  —  a  favorite  of 
mine,  a  sweet  and  serious  man  of  middle  age,  Christ- 
like in  appearance  and  goodness,  and  a  scholar  as 
well. 

But  this  boldness  that  I  took  to  be  presumption  was 
a  vital  clew  to  the  nature  of  Ernest  Everhard.     He  was 

1  In  that  day  it  was  the  custom  of  men  to  compete  for  purses  of 
money.  They  fought  with  their  hands.  When  one  was  beaten  into 
insensibility  or  killed,  the  survivor  took  the  money. 

2  This  obscure  reference  applies  to  a  blind  negro  musician  who 
took  the  world  by  storm  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
of  the  Christian  Era. 


6  THE  IRON  HEEL 

simple,  direct,  afraid  of  nothing,  and  he  refused  to  waste 
time  on  conventional  mannerisms.  "You  pleased  me," 
he  explained  long  afterward;  "and  why  should  I  not 
fill  my  eyes  with  that  which  pleases  me?"  I  have 
said  that  he  was  afraid  of  nothing.  He  was  a  natural 
aristocrat  —  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  was 
in  the  camp  of  the  non-aristocrats.  He  was  a  super- 
man, a  blond  beast  such  as  Nietzsche  J  has  described, 
and  in  addition  he  was  aflame  with  democracy. 

In  the  interest  of  meeting  the  other  guests,  and  what 
of  my  unfavorable  impression,  I  forgot  all  about  the 
working-class  philosopher,  though  once  or  twice  at 
table  I  noticed  him  —  especially  the  twinkle  in  his  eye 
as  he  listened  to  the  talk  first  of  one  minister  and  then 
of  another.  He  has  humor,  I  thought,  and  I  almost 
forgave  him  his  clothes.  But  the  time  went  by,  and 
the  dinner  went  b}^,  and  he  never  opened  his  mouth  to 
speak,  while  the  ministers  talked  interminably  about 
the  working  class  and  its  relation  to  the  church,  and 
what  the  church  had  done  and  was  doing  for  it.  I 
noticed  that  my  father  was  annoyed  because  Ernest 
did  not  talk.  Once  father  took  advantage  of  a  lull 
and  asked  him  to  say  something ;  but  Ernest  shrugged 
his  shoulders  and  with  an  "I  have  nothing  to  say"  went 
on  eating  salted  almonds. 

1  Friedrich  Nietzsche,  the  mad  philosopher  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury of  the  Christian  Era,  who  caught  wild  glimpses  of  truth,  but  who, 
before  he  was  done,  reasoned  himself  around  the  great  circle  of  hu- 
man thought  and  off  into  madness. 


MY  EAGLE  7 

But  father  was  not  to  be  denied.  After  a  while  he 
said: 

"We  have  with  us  a  member  of  the  working  class. 
I  am  sure  that  he  can  present  things  from  a  new  point 
of  view  that  will  be  interesting  and  refreshing.  I  refer 
to  Mr.  Everhard." 

The  others  betrayed  a  well-mannered  interest,  and 
urged  Ernest  for  a  statement  of  his  views.  Their  atti- 
tude toward  him  was  so  broadly  tolerant  and  kindly 
that  it  was  really  patronizing.  And  I  saw  that  Ernest 
noted  it  and  was  amused.  He  looked  slowly  about 
him,  and  I  saw  the  glint  of  laughter  in  his  eyes. 

"I  am  not  versed  in  the  courtesies  of  ecclesiastical 
controversy,"  he  began,  and  then  hesitated  with 
modesty   and   indecision. 

"Go  on,"  they  urged,  and  Dr.  Hammerfield  said: 
"We  do  not  mind  the  truth  that  is  in  any  man.  If  it 
is  sincere,"  he  amended. 

"Then  you  separate  sincerity  from  truth?"  Ernest 
laughed  quickly. 

Dr.  Hammerfield  gasped,  and  managed  to  answer, 
"The  best  of  us  may  be  mistaken,  young  man,  the  best 
of  us." 

Ernest's  manner  changed  on  the  instant.  He  became 
another  man. 

"All  right,  then,"  he  answered;  "and  let  me  begin 
by  saying  that  you  are  all  mistaken.  You  know  noth- 
ing, and  worse  than  nothing,  about  the  working  class. 


8  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Your  sociology  is  as  vicious  and  worthless  as  is  your 
method  of  thinking." 

It  was  not  so  much  what  he  said  as  how  he  said  it. 
I  roused  at  the  first  sound  of  his  voice.  It  was  as  bold 
as  his  eyes.  It  was  a  clarion-call  that  thrilled  me. 
And  the  whole  table  was  aroused,  shaken  alive  from 
monotony  and  drowsiness. 

"What  is  so  dreadfully  vicious  and  worthless  in  our 
method  of  thinking,  young  man?"  Dr.  Hammerfield 
demanded,  and  already  there  was  something  unpleasant 
in  his  voice  and  manner  of  utterance. 

"You  are  metaphysicians.  You  can  prove  any- 
thing by  metaphysics;  and  having  done  so,  every 
metaphysician  can  prove  every  other  metaphysician 
wrong  —  to  his  own  satisfaction.  You  are  anar- 
chists in  the  realm  of  thought.  And  you  are  mad 
cosmos-makers.  Each  of  you  dwells  in  a  cosmos  of 
his  own  making,  created  out  of  his  own  fancies  and 
desires.  You  do  not  know  the  real  world  in  which 
you  live,  and  your  thinking  has  no  place  in  the  real 
world  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  phenomena  of  mental 
aberration. 

"Do  you  know  what  I  was  reminded  of  as  I 
sat  at  table  and  listened  to  you  talk  and  talk? 
You  reminded  me  for  all  the  world  of  the  scholas- 
tics of  the  Middle  Ages  who  gravely  and  learnedly 
debated  the  absorbing  question  of  how  many  angels 
could  dance  on  the  point  of  a  needle.     Why,  my  dear 


MY  EAGLE  9 

sirs,  you  are  as  remote  from  the  intellectual  life  of 
the  twentieth  century  as  an  Indian  medicine-man 
making  incantation  in  the  primeval  forest  ten  thou- 
sand years  ago." 

As  Ernest  talked  he  seemed  in  a  fine  passion ;  his 
face  glowed,  his  eyes  snapped  and  flashed,  and  his 
chin  and  jaw  were  eloquent  with  aggressiveness.  But 
it  was  only  a  way  he  had.  It  always  aroused  people. 
His  smashing,  sledge-hammer  manner  of  attack  in- 
variably made  them  forget  themselves.  And  they 
were  forgetting  themselves  now.  Bishop  Morehouse 
was  leaning  forward  and  listening  intently.  Exas- 
peration and  anger  were  flushing  the  face  of  Dr. 
Hammerneld.  And  others  were  exasperated,  too,  and 
some  were  smiling  in  an  amused  and  superior  way. 
As  for  myself,  I  found  it  most  enjoyable.  I  glanced  at 
father,  and  I  was  afraid  he  was  going  to  giggle  at  the 
effect  of  this  human  bombshell  he  had  been  guilty  of 
launching  amongst  us. 

"Your  terms  are  rather  vague,"  Dr.  Hammerfield 
interrupted.  "Just  precisely  what  do  you  mean  when 
you  call  us  metaphysicians?" 

"  I  call  you  metaphysicians  because  you  reason  meta- 
physically," Ernest  went  on.  "Your  method  of 
reasoning  is  the  opposite  to  that  of  science.  There  is 
no  validity  to  your  conclusions.  You  can  prove  every- 
thing and  nothing,  and  no  two  of  you  can  agree  upon 
anything.     Each  of  you  goes  into  his  own  consciousness  \ 


10  THE  IRON  HEEL 

to  explain  himself  and  the  universe.  As  well  may 
you  lift  yourselves  by  your  own  bootstraps  as  to  explain 
consciousness  by  consciousness." 

"I  do  not  understand,"  Bishop  Morehouse  said. 
"It  seems  to  me  that  all  things  of  the  mind  are  meta- 
physical. That  most  exact  and  convincing  of  all 
sciences,  mathematics,  is  sheerly  metaphysical.  Each 
and  every  thought-process  of  the  scientific  reasoner  is 
metaphysical.     Surely  you  will  agree  with  me?" 

"As  you  say,  you  do  not  understand,"  Ernest  replied. 
"The  metaphysician  reasons  deductively  out  of  his 
own  subjectivity.  The  scientist  reasons  inductively 
from  the  facts  of  experience.  The  metaphysician  rea- 
sons from  theory  to  facts,  the  scientist  reasons  from 
facts  to  theory.  The  metaphysician  explains  the  uni- 
verse by  himself,  the  scientist  explains  himself  by  the 
universe." 

"Thank  God  we  are  not  scientists,"  Dr.  Hammer- 
field  murmured  complacently. 

"What  are  you  then?"  Ernest  demanded. 

"Philosophers." 

"There  you  go,"  Ernest  laughed.  "You  have  left 
the  real  and  solid  earth  and  are  up  in  the  air  with  a 
word  for  a  flying  machine.  Pray  come  down  to  earth 
and  tell  me  precisely  what  you  do  mean  by  philosophy." 

"Philosophy  is — "  (Dr.  Hammerfield  paused  and 
cleared  his  throat)  —  "something  that  cannot  be 
denned  comprehensively  except   to   such   minds   and 


MY  EAGLE  11 

temperaments  as  are  philosophical.  The  narrow  scien- 
tist with  his  nose  in  a  test-tube  cannot  understand 
philosophy." 

Ernest  ignored  the  thrust.  It  was  always  his  way 
to  turn  the  point  back  upon  an  opponent,  and  he  did  it 
now,  with  a  beaming  brotherliness  of  face  and  utter- 
ance. 

"Then  you  will  undoubtedly  understand  the  defini- 
tion I  shall  now  make  of  philosophy.  But  before  I 
make  it,  I  shall  challenge  you  to  point  out  error  in 
it  or  to  remain  a  silent  metaphysician.  Philosophy 
is  merely  the  widest  science  of  all.  Its  reasoning 
method  is  the  same  as  that  of  any  particular  science 
and  of  all  particular  sciences.  And  by  that  same 
method  of  reasoning,  the  inductive  method,  philosophy 
fuses  all  particular  sciences  into  one  great  science.  As 
Spencer  says,  the  data  of  any  particular  science  are 
partially  unified  knowledge.  Philosophy  unifies  the 
knowledge  that  is  contributed  by  all  the  sciences. 
Philosophy  is  the  science  of  science,  the  master  science, 
if  you  please.     How  do  you  like  my  definition?" 

"Very  creditable,  very  creditable,"  Dr.  Hammerfield 
muttered  lamely. 

But  Ernest  was  merciless. 

"Remember,"  he  warned,  "my  definition  is  fatal 
to  metaphysics.  If  you  do  not  now  point  out  a  flaw 
in  my  definition,  you  are  disqualified  later  on  from 
advancing    metaphysical    arguments.     You    must    go 


12  THE  IRON  HEEL 

through  life  seeking  that  flaw  and  remaining  meta- 
physically silent  until  you  have  found  it." 

Ernest  waited.  The  silence  was  painful.  Dr.  Ham- 
merfield  was  pained.  He  was  also  puzzled.  Ernest's 
sledge-hammer  attack  disconcerted  him.  He  was  not 
used  to  the  simple  and  direct  method  of  controversy. 
He  looked  appealingly  around  the  table,  but  no  one  an- 
swered for  him.  I  caught  father  grinning  into  his  napkin. 

"  There  is  another  way  of  disqualifying  the  metaphysi- 
cians/' Ernest  said,  when  he  had  rendered  Dr.  Hammer- 
field's  discomfiture  complete.  "  Judge  them  by  their 
works.  What  have  they  done  for  mankind  beyond  the 
spinning  of  airy  fancies  and  the  mistaking  of  their  own 
shadows  for  gods  ?  They  have  added  to  the  gayety  of 
mankind,  I  grant ;  but  what  tangible  good  have  they 
wrought  for  mankind  ?  They  philosophized,  if  you  will 
pardon  my  misuse  of  the  word,  about  the  heart  as  the 
seat  of  the  emotions,  while  the  scientists  were  formu- 
lating the  circulation  of  the  blood.  They  declaimed 
about  famine  and  pestilence  as  being  scourges  of  God, 
while  the  scientists  were  building  granaries  and  drain- 
ing cities.  They  builded  gods  in  their  own  shapes  and 
out  of  their  own  desires,  while  the  scientists  were 
building  roads  and  bridges.  They  were  describing  the 
earth  as  the  centre  of  the  universe,  while  the  scientists 
were  discovering  America  and  probing  space  for  the 
stars  and  the  laws  of  the  stars.  In  short,  the  meta- 
physicians have  done  nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  for 


MY  EAGLE  13 

mankind.  Step  by  step,  before  the  advance  of  science, 
they  have  been  driven  back.  As  fast  as  the  ascertained 
facts  of  science  have  overthrown  their  subjective  expla- 
nations of  things,  they  have  made  new  subjective  ex- 
planations of  things,  including  explanations  of  the  latest 
ascertained  facts.  And  this,  I  doubt  not,  they  will  go 
on  doing  to  the  end  of  time.  Gentlemen,  a  metaphysi- 
cian is  a  medicine  man.  The  difference  between  you 
and  the  Eskimo  who  makes  a  fur-clad  blubber-eating 
god  is  merely  a  difference  of  several  thousand  years  of 
ascertained  facts.     That  is  all." 

"Yet  the  thought  of  Aristotle  ruled  Europe  for 
twelve  centuries,"  Dr.  Ballingford  announced  pom- 
pously.    "And  Aristotle  was  a  metaphysician." 

Dr.  Ballingford  glanced  around  the  table  and  was 
rewarded  by  nods  and  smiles  of  approval. 

"Your  illustration  is  most  unfortunate,"  Ernest 
replied.  "You  refer  to  a  very  dark  period  in  human 
history.  In  fact,  we  call  that  period  the  Dark  Ages. 
A  period  wherein  science  was  raped  by  the  metaphysi- 
cians, wherein  physics  became  a  search  for  the  Philoso- 
pher's Stone,  wherein  chemistry  became  alchemy,  and 
astronomy  became  astrology.  Sorry  the  domination 
of  Aristotle's  thought!" 

Dr.  Ballingford  looked  pained,  then  he  brightened 
up  and  said : 

"Granted  this  horrible  picture  you  have  drawn,  yet 
you  must  confess  that  metaphysics  was  inherently  po- 


14  THE  IRON   HEEL 

tent  in  so  far  as  it  drew  humanity  out  of  this  dark  period 
and  on  into  the  illumination  of  the  succeeding  cen- 
turies." 

"  Metaphysics  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,"  Ernest 
retorted. 

"What?"  Dr.  Hammerfield  cried.  "It  was  not  the 
thinking  and  the  speculation  that  led  to  the  voyages  of 
discovery?" 

"Ah,  my  dear  sir,"  Ernest  smiled,  "I  thought  you 
were  disqualified.  You  have  not  yet  picked  out  the 
flaw  in  my  definition  of  philosophy.  You  are  now  on  an 
unsubstantial  basis.  But  it  is  the  way  of  the  meta- 
physicians, and  I  forgive  you.  No,  I  repeat,  meta- 
physics had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  Bread  and  butter, 
silks  and  jewels,  dollars  and  cents,  and,  incidentally, 
the  closing  up  of  the  overland  trade-routes  to  India, 
were  the  things  that  caused  the  voyages  of  dis^.?very. 
With  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  in  1453,  the  Turks 
blocked  the  way  of  the  caravans  to  India.  The  traders 
of  Europe  had  to  find  another  route.  Here  was  the 
original  cause  for  the  voyages  of  discovery.  Columbus 
sailed  to  find  a  new  route  to  the  Indies.  It  is  so  stated 
in  all  the  history  books.  Incidentally,  new  facts  were 
learned  about  the  nature,  size,  and  form  of  the  earth, 
and  the  Ptolemaic  system  went  glimmering." 

Dr.  Hammerfield  snorted. 

"You  do  not  agree  with  me?"  Ernest  queried. 
"Then  wherein  am  I  wrong?" 


MY  EAGLE  15 

"I  can  only  reaffirm  my  position/'  Dr.  Hammerfield 
retorted  tartly.  "It  is  too  long  a  story  to  enter  into 
now." 

"No  story  is  too  long  for  the  scientist/'  Ernest  said 
sweetly.  "That  is  why  the  scientist  gets  to  places. 
That  is  why  he  got  to  America." 

I  shall  not  describe  the  whole  evening,  though  it  is 
a  joy  to  me  to  recall  every  moment,  every  detail,  of 
those  first  hours  of  my  coming  to  know  Ernest  Ever- 
hard. 

Battle  royal  raged,  and  the  ministers  grew  red-faced 
and  excited,  especially  at  the  moments  when  Ernest 
called  them  romantic  philosophers,  shadow-projectors, 
and  similar  things.  And  always  he  checked  them  back 
to  facts.  "'The  fact,  man,  the  irrefragable  fact!" 
he  would  proclaim  triumphantly,  when  he  had  brought 
one  of  them  a  cropper.  He  bristled  with  facts.  He 
tripped  them  up  with  facts,  ambuscaded  them  with 
facts,  bombarded  them  with  broadsides  of  facts. 

"You  seem  to  worship  at  the  shrine  of  fact,"  Dr. 
Hammerfield  taunted  him. 

"There  is  no  God  but  Fact,  and  Mr.  Everhard  is  its 
prophet,"  Dr.  Ballingford  paraphrased. 

Ernest  smilingly  acquiesced. 

"I'm  like  the  man  from  Texas,"  he  said.  And,  on 
being  solicited,  he  explained.  "You  see,  the  man  from 
Missouri  always  says,  'You've  got  to  show  me.'  But 
the  man  from  Texas  says,  '  You've  got  to  put  it  in  my 


16  THE  IRON   HEEL 

hand.'  From  which  it  is  apparent  that  he  is  no  meta- 
physician.' ' 

Another  time,  when  Ernest  had  just  said  that  the 
metaphysical  philosophers  could  never  stand  the  test  of 
truth,  Dr.  Hammerfield  suddenly  demanded : 

"What  is  the  test  of  truth,  young  man?  Will  you 
kindly  explain  what  has  so  long  puzzled  wiser  heads 
than  yours?" 

"Certainly,"  Ernest  answered.  His  cocksureness 
irritated  them.  "The  wise  heads  have  puzzled  so 
sorely  over  truth  because  they  went  up  into  the  air 
after  it.  Had  they  remained  on  the  solid  earth,  they 
would  have  found  it  easily  enough  —  ay,  they  would 
have  found  that  they  themselves  were  precisely  testing 
truth  with  every  practical  act  and  thought  of  their 
lives." 

"The  test,  the  test,"  Dr.  Hammerfield  repeated 
impatiently.  "Never  mind  the  preamble.  Give  us 
that  which  we  have  sought  so  long  —  the  test  of  truth. 
Give  it  us,  and  we  will  be  as  gods." 

There  was  an  impolite  and  sneering  scepticism  in  his 
words  and  manner  that  secretly  pleased  most  of  them 
at  the  table,  though  it  seemed  to  bother  Bishop  More- 
house. 

"Dr.  Jordan  *  has  stated  it  very  clearly,"  Ernest  said. 

1  A  noted  educator  of  the  late  nineteenth  and  early  twentieth  cen- 
turies of  the  Christian  Era.  He  was  president  of  the  Stanford  Uni- 
versity, a  private  benefaction  of  the  times. 


MY  EAGLE  17 

"His  test  of  truth  is:  'Will  it  work?  Will  you  trust 
your  life  to  it?'7' 

"Pish  I"  Dr.  Hammerfield  sneered.  "You  have  not 
taken  Bishop  Berkeley  x  into  account.  He  has  never 
been  answered." 

"The  noblest  metaphysician  of  them  all,"  Ernest 
laughed.  "But  your  example  is  unfortunate.  As 
Berkeley  himself  attested,  his  metaphysics  didn't  work." 

Dr.  Hammerfield  was  angry,  righteously  angry.  It 
was  as  though  he  had  caught  Ernest  in  a  theft  or  a  lie. 

"Young  man,"  he  trumpeted,  "that,  statement  is 
on  a  par  with  all  you  have  uttered  to-night.  It  is  a 
base  and  unwarranted  assumption." 

"I  am  quite  crushed,"  Ernest  murmured  meekly. 
"Only  I  don't  know  what  hit  me.  You'll  have  to  put 
it  in  my  hand,  Doctor." 

"I  will,  I  will,"  Dr.  Hammerfield  spluttered.  "How 
do  you  know  ?  You  do  not  know  that  Bishop  Berkeley 
attested  that  his  metaphysics  did  not  work.  You  have 
no  proof.     Young  man,  they  have  always  worked." 

"I  take  it  as  proof  that  Berkeley's  metaphysics  did 
not  work,  because — "  Ernest  paused  calmly  for  a 
moment.  "Because  Berkeley  made  an  invariable  prac- 
tice of  going  through  doors  instead  of  walls.  Because 
he  trusted  his  life  to  solid  bread  and  butter  and  roast 

1  An  idealistic  monist  who  long  puzzled  the  philosophers  of  that 
time  with  his  denial  of  the  existence  of  matter,  but  whose  clever  ar- 
gument was  finally  demolished  when  the  new  empiric  facts  of  science 
Were  philosophically  generalized. 


18  THE  IRON  HEEL 

beef.     Because  he  shaved  himself  with  a  razor  that 
worked  when  it  removed  the  hair  from  his  face." 

"But  those  are  actual  things!"  Dr.  Hammerfield 
cried.     "Metaphysics  is  of  the  mind." 

"And  they  work  —  in  the  mind?"  Ernest  queried 
softly. 

The  other  nodded. 

"And  even  a  multitude  of  angels  can  dance  on  the 
point  of  a  needle  —  in  the  mind,"  Ernest  went  on 
reflectively.  "And  a  blubber-eating,  fur-clad  god 
can  exist  and  work  —  in  the  mind ;  and  there  are  no 
proofs  to  the  contrary  —  in  the  mind.  I  suppose, 
Doctor,  you  live  in  the  mind?" 

"My  mind  to  me  a  kingdom  is,"  was  the  answer. 

"That's  another  way  of  saying  that  you  live  up  in  the 
air.  But  you  come  back  to  earth  at  meal-time,  I  am 
sure,  or  when  an  earthquake  happens  along.  Or,  tell 
me,  Doctor,  do  you  have  no  apprehension  in  an  earth- 
quake that  that  incorporeal  body  of  yours  will  be  hit 
by  an  immaterial  brick?" 

Instantly,  and  quite  unconsciously,  Dr.  Hammer- 
field's  hand  shot  up  to  his  head,  where  a  scar  disap- 
peared under  the  hair.  It  happened  that  Ernest  had 
blundered  on  an  apposite  illustration.  Dr.  Hammer- 
field  had  been  nearly  killed  in  the  Great  Earthquake ' 
by  a  falling  chimney.  Everybody  broke  out  into  roars 
of  laughter. 

1  The  Great  Earthquake  of  1906  a.d.  that  destroyed  San  Francisco. 


MY  EAGLE  19 

"Well?"  Ernest  asked,  when  the  merriment  had 
subsided.     "Proofs  to  the  contrary?" 

And  in  the  silence  he  asked  again,  ""Well?"  Then 
he  added,  "Still  well,  but  not  so  well,  that  argument 
of  yours." 

But  Dr.  Hammerfield  was  temporarily  crushed,  and 
the  battle  raged  on  in  new  directions.  On  point  after 
point,  Ernest  challenged  the  ministers.  When  they 
affirmed  that  they  knew  the  working  class,  he  told 
them  fundamental  truths  about  the  working  class  that, 
they  did  not  know,  and  challenged  them  for  disproofs. 
He  gave  them  facts,  always  facts,  checked  their  excur- 
sions into  the  air,  and  brought  them  back  to  the  solid 
earth  and  its  facts. 

How  the  scene  comes  back  to  me !  I  can  hear  him 
now,  with  that  war-note  in  his  voice,  flaying  them  with 
his  facts,  each  fact  a  lash  that  stung  and  stung  again. 
And  he  was  merciless.  He  took  no  quarter,1  and  gave 
none.  I  can  never  forget  the  flaying  he  gave  them  at 
the  end : 

"You  have  repeatedly  confessed  to-night,  by  direct 
avowal  or  ignorant  statement,  that  you  do  not  know 
the  working  class.  But  you  are  not  to  be  blamed  for 
this.  How  can  you  know  anything  about  the  working 
class?     You  do  not  live  in  the  same  locality  with  the 

1  This  figure  arises  from  the  customs  of  the  times.  When,  among 
men  fighting  to  the  death  in  their  wild-animal  way,  a  beaten  man  threw 
down  his  weapons,  it  was  at  the  option  of  the  victor  to  slay  him  or 
spare  him. 


20  THE  IRON  HEEL 

working  class.  You  herd  with  the  capitalist  class  in 
another  locality.  And  why  not?  It  is  the  capitalist 
class  that  pays  you,  that  feeds  you,  that  puts  the  very 
clothes  on  your  backs  that  you  are  wearing  here  to- 
night. And  in  return  you  preach  to  your  employers 
the  brands  of  metaphysics  that  are  especially  acceptable 
to  them;  and  the  especially  acceptable  brands  are 
acceptable  because  they  do  not  menace  the  established 
order  of  society." 

Here  there  was  a  stir  of  dissent  around  the  table. 

"Oh,  I  am  not  challenging  your  sincerity,"  Ernest 
continued.  "You  are  sincere.  You  preach  what  you 
believe.  There  lies  your  strength  and  your  value  — 
to  the  capitalist  class.  But  should  you  change  your 
belief  to  something  that  menaces  the  established  order, 
your  preaching  would  be  unacceptable  to  your  em- 
ployers, and  you  would  be  discharged.  Every  little 
while  some  one  or  another  of  you  is  so  discharged.1 
Ami  not  right?" 

This  time  there  was  no  dissent.  They  sat  dumbly 
acquiescent,  with  the  exception  of  Dr.  Hammerfield, 
who  said : 

"It  is  when  their  thinking  is  wrong  "that  they  are 
asked  to  resign." 

"Which  is  another  way  of  saying  when  their  think- 

-i  During  this  period  there  were  many  ministers  cast  out  of  the 
■church  for  preaching  unacceptable  doctrine.  Especially  were  they 
cast  .out  when  their  preaching  became  tainted  with  socialism. 


MY  EAGLE  21 

ing  is  unacceptable/'  Ernest  answered,  and  then  went 
on.  "So  I  say  to  you,  go  ahead  and  preach  and  earn 
your  pay,  but  for  goodness'  sake  leave  the  working  class 
alone.  You  belong  in  the  enemy's  camp.  You  have 
nothing  in  common  with  the  working  class.  Your 
hands  are  soft  with  the  work  others  have  performed 
for  you.  Your  stomachs  are  round  with  the  plenitude 
of  eating."  (Here  Dr.  Ballingford  winced,  and  every 
eye  glanced  at  his  prodigious  girth.  It  was  said  he  had 
not  seen  his  own  feet  in  years.)  "And  your  minds 
are  filled  with  doctrines  that  are  buttresses  of  the 
established  order.  You  are  as  much  mercenaries 
(sincere  mercenaries,  I  grant)  as  were  the  men  of  the 
Swiss  Guard.1  Be  true  to  your  salt  and  your  hire; 
guard,  with  your  preaching,  the  interests  of  your 
employers ;  but  do  not  come  down  to  the  working  class 
and  serve  as  false  leaders.  You  cannot  honestly  be  in 
the  two  camps  at  once.  The  working  class  has  done 
without  you.  Believe  me,  the  working  class  will  con- 
tinue to  do  without  you.  And,  furthermore,  the  work- 
ing class  can  do  better  without  you  than  with  you." 

1  The  hired  foreign  palace  guards  of  Louis  XVI.,  a  king  of  France 
that  was  beheaded  by  his  people. 


CHAPTER  II 

CHALLENGES 

After  the  guests  had  gone,  father  threw  himself 
into  a  chair  and  gave  vent  to  roars  of  Gargantuan 
laughter.  Not  since  the  death  of  my  mother  had  I 
known  him  to  laugh  so  heartily. 

"I'll  wager  Dr.  Hammerfield  was  never  up  against 
anything  like  it  in  his  life,"  he  laughed.  "'The  cour- 
tesies of  ecclesiastical  controversy!'  Did  you  notice 
how  he  began  like  a  lamb  —  Everhard,  I  mean,  and 
how  quickly  he  became  a  roaring  lion?  He  has  a 
splendidly  disciplined  mind.  He  would  have  made  a 
good  scientist  if  his  energies  had  been  directed  that 
way." 

I  need  scarcely  say  that  I  was  deeply  interested  in 
Ernest  Everhard.  It  was  not  alone  what  he  had  said 
and  how  he  had  said  it,  but  it  was  the  man  himself.  I 
had  never  met  a  man  like  him.  I  suppose  that  was 
why,  in  spite  of  my  twenty-four  years,  I  had  not 
married.  I  liked  him;  I  had  to  confess  it  to  myself. 
And  my  like  for  him  was  founded  on  things  beyond 
intellect   and    argument.     Regardless   of   his   bulging; 

22 


CHALLENGES  23 

muscles  and  prize-fighter's  throat,  he  impressed  me  as 
an  ingenuous  boy.  I  felt  that  under  the  guise  of  an 
intellectual  swashbuckler  was  a  delicate  and  sensitive 
spirit.  I  sensed  this,  in  ways  I  knew  not,  save  that 
they  were  my  woman's  intuitions. 

There  was  something  in  that  clarion-call  of  his  that 
went  to  my  heart.  It  still  rang  in  my  ears,  and  I  felt 
that  I  should  like  to  hear  it  again  —  and  to  see  again 
that  glint  of  laughter  in  his  eyes  that  belied  the  im- 
passioned seriousness  of  his  face.  And  there  were 
further  reaches  of  vague  and  indeterminate  feelings 
that  stirred  in  me.  I  almost  loved  him  then,  though 
I  am  confident,  had  I  never  seen  him  again,  that  the 
vague  feelings  would  have  passed  away  and  that  I 
should  easily  have  forgotten  him. 

But  I  was  not  destined  never  to  see  him  again.  My 
father's  new-born  interest  in  sociology  and  the  dinner 
parties  he  gave  would  not  permit.  Father  was  not  a 
sociologist.  His  marriage  with  my  mother  had  been 
very  happy,  and  in  the  researches  of  his  own  science, 
physics,  he  had  been  very  happy.  But  when  mother 
died,  his  own  work  could  not  fill  the  emptiness.  At  first, 
in  a  mild  way,  he  had  dabbled  in  philosophy;  then, 
becoming  interested,  he  had  drifted  on  into  economics 
and  sociology.  He  had  a  strong  sense  of  justice,  and 
he  soon  became  fired  with  a  passion  to  redress  wrong. 
It  was  with  gratitude  that  I  hailed  these  signs  of  a  new 
interest  in  life,  though  I  little  dreamed  what  the  out- 


24  THE  IRON  HEEL 

come  would  be.  With  the  enthusiasm  of  a  boy  he 
plunged  excitedly  into  these  new  pursuits,  regardless 
of  whither  they  led  him. 

He  had  been  used  always  to  the  laboratory,  and  so 
it  was  that  he  turned  the  dining  room  into  a  socio- 
logical laboratory.  Here  came  to  dinner  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men,  —  scientists,  politicians,  bankers, 
merchants,  professors,  labor  leaders,  socialists,  and 
anarchists.  He  stirred  them  to  discussion,  and  ana- 
lyzed their  thoughts  on  life  and  society. 

He  had  met  Ernest  shortly  prior  to  the  "preacher's 
night."  And  after  the  guests  were  gone,  I  learned  how 
he  had  met  him,  passing  down  a  street  at  night  and 
stopping  to  listen  to  a  man  on  a  soap-box  who  was 
addressing  a  crowd  of  workingmen.  The  man  on  the 
box  was  Ernest.  Not  that  he  was  a  mere  soap-box 
orator.  He  stood  high  in  the  councils  of  the  socialist 
party,  was  one  of  the  leaders,  and  was  the  acknowledged 
leader  in  the  philosophy  of  socialism.  But  he  had  a 
certain  clear  way  of  stating  the  abstruse  in  simple 
language,  was  a  born  expositor  and  teacher,  and  was 
not  above  the  soap-box  as  a  means  of  interpreting 
economics  to  the  workingmen. 

My  father  stopped  to  listen,  became  interested, 
effected  a  meeting,  and,  after  quite  an  acquaintance, 
invited  him  to  the  ministers'  dinner.  It  was  after  the 
dinner  that  father  told  me  what  little  he  knew  about 
him.     He  had  been  born  in  the  working  class,  though 


CHALLENGES  25 

he  was  a  descendant  of  the  old  line  of  Everhards  that 
for  over  two  hundred  years  had  lived  in  America.1 
At  ten  years  of  age  he  had  gone  to  work  in  the  mills, 
and  later  he  served  his  apprenticeship  and  became  a 
horseshoer.  He  was  self-educated,  had  taught  him- 
self German  and  French,  and  at  that  time  was  earning 
a  meagre  living  by  translating  scientific  and  philosophi- 
cal works  for  a  struggling  socialist  publishing  house  in 
Chicago.  Also,  his  earnings  were  added  to  by  the 
royalties  from  the  small  sales  of  his  own  economic  and 
philosophic  works. 

This  much  I  learned  of  him  before  I  went  to  bed,  and 
I  lay  long  awake,  listening  in  memory  to  the  sound  of 
his  voice.  I  grew  frightened  at  my  thoughts.  He  was 
so  unlike  the  men  of  my  own  class,  so  alien  and  so 
strong.  His  masterfulness  delighted  me  and  terrified 
me,  for  my  fancies  wantonly  roved  until  I  found  my- 
self considering  him  as  a  lover,  as  a  husband.  I  had 
always  heard  that  the  strength  of  men  was  an  irresist- 
ible attraction  to  women  ;  but  he  was  too  strong.  "'No  ! 
no!"  I  cried  out.  "It  is  impossible,  absuid!"  And 
on  the  morrow  I  awoke  to  find  in  myself  a  longing  to 
see  him  again.  I  wanted  to  see  him  mastering  men  in 
discussion,  the  war-note  in  his  voice ;  to  see  him,  in 
all  his  certitude  and  strength,  shattering  their  com- 
placency, shaking  them  out  of  their  nits  of  thinking. 

1  The  distinction  between  being  native  born  and  foreign  born  was 
sharp  and  invidious  in  those  da}rs. 


26  THE  IRON  HEEL 

What  if  he  did  swashbuckle  ?  To  use  his  own  phrase, 
"it  worked,"  it  produced  effects.  And,  besides,  his 
swashbuckling  was  a  fine  thing  to  see.  It  stirred  one 
like  the  onset  of  battle. 

Several  days  passed  during  which  I  read  Ernest's 
books,  borrowed  from  my  father.  His  written  word 
was  as  his  spoken  word,  clear  and  convincing.  It  was 
its  absolute  simplicity  that  convinced  even  while  one 
continued  to  doubt.  He  had  the  gift  of  lucidity.  He 
was  the  perfect  expositor.  Yet,  in  spite  of  his  style, 
there  was  much  that  I  did  not  like.  He  laid  too  great 
stress  on  what  he  called  the  class  struggle,  the  antago- 
nism between  labor  and  capital,  the  conflict  of  interest. 

Father  reported  with  glee  Dr.  Hammerfield's  judg- 
ment of  Ernest,  which  was  to  the  effect  that  he  was 
"an  insolent  young  puppy,  made  bumptious  by  a  little 
and  very  inadequate  learning."  Also,  Dr.  Hammer- 
field  declined  to  meet  Ernest  again. 

But  Bishop  Morehouse  turned  out  to  have  become 
interested  in  Ernest,  and  was  anxious  for  another 
meeting.  "A  strong  young  man,"  he  said;  "and 
very  much  alive,  very  much  alive.  But  he  is  too  sure, 
too  sure." 

Ernest  came  one  afternoon  with  father.  The  Bishop 
had  already  arrived,  and  we  were  having  tea  on  the 
veranda.  Ernest's  continued  presence  in  Berkeley, 
by  the  way,  was  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  he  was 
taking  special  courses  in  biology  at  the  university,  and 


CHALLENGES  27 

also  that  he  was  hard  at  work  on  a  new  book  entitled 
"  Philosophy  and  Revolution."  * 

The  veranda  seemed  suddenly  to  have  become  small 
when  Ernest  arrived.  Not  that  he  was  so  very  large 
—  he  stood  only  five  feet  nine  inches ;  but  that  he 
seemed  to  radiate  an  atmospnere  of  largeness.  As  he 
stopped  to  meet  me,  he  betrayed  a  certain  slight  awk- 
wardness that  was  strangely  at  variance  with  his  bold- 
looking  eyes  and  his  firm,  sure  hand  that  clasped  for  a 
moment  in  greeting.  And  in  that  moment  his  eyes 
were  just  as  steady  and  sure.  There  seemed  a  question 
in  them  this  time,  and  as  before  he  looked  at  me  over 
long. 

"I  have  been  reading  your  '  Working-class  Philoso- 
phy,'" I  said,  and  his  eyes  lighted  in  a  pleased  way. 

"Of  course,"  he  answered,  "you  took  into  considera- 
tion the  audience  to  which  it  was  addressed." 

"I  did,  and  it  is  because  I  did  that  I  have  a  quarrel 
with  you,"  I  challenged. 

"I,  too,  have  a  quarrel  with  you,  Mr.  Everhard," 
Bishop  Morehouse  said. 

Ernest  shrugged  his  shoulders  whimsically  and  ac- 
cepted a  cup  of  tea. 

The  Bishop  bowed  and  gave  me  precedence. 

"You  foment  class  hatred,"  I  said.     "I  consider  it 


1  This  book  continued  to  be  secretly  printed  throughout  the  three 
centuries  of  the  Iron  Heel.  There  are  several  copies  of  various  editions 
in  the  National  Library  of  Ardis. 


28  THE  IRON  HEEL 

wrong  and  criminal  to  appeal  to  all  that  is  narrow  and 
brutal  in  the  working  class.  Class  hatred  is  anti-social, 
and,  it  seems  to  me,  anti-socialistic." 

"Not  guilty,"  he  answered.  "Class  hatred  is  neither 
in  the  text  nor  in  the  spirit  of  anything  I  have  ever 
written." 

"Oh!"  I  cried  reproachfully,  and  reached  for  his 
book  and  opened  it. 

He  sipped  his  tea  and  smiled  at  me  while  I  ran  over 
the  pages. 

"Page  one  hundred  and  thirty-two,"  I  read  aloud: 
'The  class  struggle,  therefore,  presents  itself  in  the 
present  stage  of  social  development  between  the  wage- 
paying  and  the  wage-paid  classes.'" 

I  looked  at  him  triumphantly. 

"No  mention  there  of  class  hatred,"  he  smiled  back. 

"But,"  I  answered,  "you  say  'class  struggle." 

"A  different  thing  from  class  hatred,"  he  replied. 
"And,  believe  me,  we  foment  no  hatred.  We  say  that 
the  class  struggle  is  a  law  of  social  development.  We 
are  not  responsible  for  it.  We  do  not  make  the  class 
struggle.  We  merely  explain  it,  as  Newton  explained 
gravitation.  We  explain  the  nature  of  the  conflict 
of  interest  that  produces  the  class  struggle." 

"But  there  should  be  no  conflict  of  interest!"  I 
cried. 

"I  agree  with  you  heartily,"  he  answered.  "That 
is  what  we  socialists  are  trying  to  bring  about,  —  the 


CHALLENGES  29 

abolition  of  the  conflict  of  interest.  Pardon  me.  Let 
me  read  an  extract."  He  took  his  book  and  turned 
back  several  pages.  "Page  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
six:  'The  cycle  of  class  struggles  which  began  with  the 
dissolution  of  rude,  tribal  communism  and  the  rise  of 
private  property  will  end  with  the  passing  of  private 
property  in  the  means  of  social  existence.'  " 

"But  I  disagree  with  you,"  the  Bishop  interposed, 
his  pale,  ascetic  face  betraying  by  a  faint  glow  the 
intensity  of  his  feelings.  "Your  premise  is  wrong. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  conflict  of  interest  be- 
tween labor  and  capital  —  or,  rather,  there  ought  not 
to  be." 

"Thank  you,"  Ernest  said  gravely.  "By  that  last 
statement  you  have  given  me  back  my  premise." 

"But  why  should  there  be  a  conflict?"  the  Bishop 
demanded  warmly. 

Ernest  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Because  we  are 
so  made,  I  guess." 

"But  we  are  not  so  made  !"   cried  the  other. 

"Are  you  discussing  the  ideal  man?"  Ernest  asked, 
"  —  unselfish  and  godlike,  and  so  few  in  numbers  as  to 
be  practically  non-existent,  or  are  you  discussing  the 
common  and  ordinary  average  man?" 

"The  common  and  ordinary  man,"  was  the  answer. 

"Who  is  weak  and  fallible,  prone  to  error?" 

Bishop  Morehouse  nodded. 

"And  petty  and  selfish?" 


30  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Again  he  nodded. 

" Watch  out!"     Ernest  warned.     "I  said  'selfish.'  " 

"The  average  man  is  selfish,"  the  Bishop  affirmed 
valiantly. 

"Wants  all  he  can  get?" 

"Wants  all  he  can  get  —  true  but  deplorable." 

"Then  I've  got  you."  Ernest's  jaw  snapped  like  a 
trap.  "Let  me  show  you.  Here  is  a  man  who  works 
on  the  street  railways." 

"He  couldn't  work  if  it  weren't  for  capital,"  the 
Bishop  interrupted. 

"True,  and  you  will  grant  that  capital  would  perish 
if  there  were  no  labor  to  earn  the  dividends."     • 

The  Bishop  was  silent. 

"Won't  you?"  Ernest  insisted. 

The  Bishop  nodded. 

"Then  our  statements  cancel  each  other,"  Ernest 
said  in  a  matter-of-fact  tone,  "and  we  are  where  we 
were.  Now  to  begin  again.  The  workingmen  on  the 
street  railway  furnish  the  labor.  The  stockholders 
furnish  the  capital.  By  the  joint  effort  of  the  working- 
men  and  the  capital,  money  is  earned.1  They  divide 
between  them  this  money  that  is  earned.  Capital's 
share  is  called  ' dividends.'  Labor's  share  is  called 
'wages.'" 

1  In  those  days,  groups  of  predatory  individuals  controlled  all  the 
means  of  transportation^  and  for  the  use  of  same  levied  toll  upon  the 
public. 


CHALLENGES  31 

"Very  good,"  the  Bishop  interposed.  "And  there 
is  no  reason  that  the  division  should  not  be  amicable." 

"You  have  already  forgotten  what  we  had  agreed 
upon/7  Ernest  replied.  "We  agreed  that  the  average 
man  is  selfish.  He  is  the  man  that  is.  You  have  gone 
up  in  the  air  and  are  arranging  a  division  between  the 
kind  of  men  that  ought  to  be  but  are  not.  But  to 
return  to  the  earth,  the  workingman,  being  selfish, 
wants  all  he  can  get  in  the  division.  The  capitalist, 
being  selfish,  wants  all  he  can  get  in  the  division. 
When  there  is  only  so  much  of  the  same  thing,  and  when 
two  men  want  all  they  can  get  of  the  same  thing,  there 
is  a  conflict  of  interest.  This  is  the  conflict  of  interest 
between  labor  and  capital.  And  it  is  an  irreconcilable 
conflict.  As  long  as  workingmen  and  capitalists  exist, 
they  will  continue  to  quarrel  over  the  division.  If  you 
were  in  San  Francisco  this  afternoon,  you'd  have  to 
walk.     There  isn't  a  street  car  running." 

"Another  strike?"  x  the  Bishop  queried  with  alarm. 

"Yes,  they're  quarrelling  over  the  division  of  the 
earnings  of  the  street  railways." 

Bishop  Morehouse  became  excited. 

"It  is  wrong  !"   he  cried.     "It  is  so  short-sighted  on 

1  These  quarrels  were  very  common  in  those  irrational  and  anarchic 
times.  Sometimes  the  laborers  refused  to  work.  Sometimes  the 
capitalists  refused  to  let  the  laborers  work.  In  the  violence  and  tur- 
bulence of  such  disagreements  much  property  was  destroyed  and 
many  lives  lost.  All  this  is  inconceivable  to  us —  as  inconceivable' 
as  another  custom  of  that  time,  namely,  the  habit  the  men  of  the 
lower  classes  had  of  breaking  the  furniture  when  they  quarrelled  with 
their  wives. 


32  THE  IRON  HEEL 

the  part  of  the  workingmen.  How  can  they  hope  to 
keep  our  sympathy  — " 

"When  we  are  compelled  to  walk,"  Ernest  said  slyly. 

But  Bishop  Morehouse  ignored  him  and  went  on : 

"Their  outlook  is  too  narrow.  Men  should  be  men, 
not  brutes.  There  will  be  violence  and  murder  now, 
and  sorrowing  widows  and  orphans.  Capital  and 
labor  should  be  friends.  They  should  work  hand  in 
hand  and  to  their  mutual  benefit." 

uAh,  now  you  are  up  in  the  air  again,"  Ernest  re- 
marked dryly.  "Come  back  to  earth.  Remember, 
we  agreed  that  the  average  man  is  selfish." 

"But  he  ought  not  to  be  !"   the  Bishop  cried. 

"And  there  I  agree  with  you,"  was  Ernest's  rejoinder. 
"He  ought  not  to  be  selfish,  but  he  will  continue  to  be 
selfish  as  long  as  he  lives  in  a  social  system  that  is 
based  on  pig-ethics." 

The  Bishop  was  aghast,  and  my  father  chuckled. 

"Yes,  pig-ethics,"  Ernest  went  on  remorselessly. 
"That  is  the  meaning  of  the  capitalist  system.  And 
that  is  what  your  church  is  standing  for,  what  you  are 
preaching  for  every  time  you  get  up  in  the  pulpit. 
Pig-ethics !     There  is  no  other  name  for  it." 

Bishop  Morehouse  turned  appealingly  to  my  father, 
but  he  laughed  and  nodded  his  head. 

"I'm  afraid  Mr.  Everhard  is  right,"  he  said.  "Lais- 
sez-faire, the  let-alone  policy  of  each  for  himself  and 
devil  take  the  hindmost.     As  Mr.  Everhard  said  the 


CHALLENGES  33 

other  night,  the  function  you  churchmen  perform  is 
to  maintain  the  established  order  of  society,  and  society 
is  established  on  that  foundation." 

"But  that  is  not  the  teaching  of  Christ !"  cried  the 
Bishop. 

"The  Church  is  not  teaching  Christ  these  days," 
Ernest  put  in  quickly.  "That  is  why  the  workingmen 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Church.  The  Church 
condones  the  frightful  brutality  and  savagery  with 
which  the   capitalist   class  treats  the  working  class." 

"The  Church  does  not  condone  it,"  the  Bishop  ob- 
jected. 

"The  Church  does  not  protest  against  it,"  Ernest 
replied.  "And  in  so  far  as  the  Church  does  not  protest, 
it  condones,  for  remember  the  Church  is  supported  by 
the  capitalist  class." 

"I  had  not  looked  at  it  in  that  light,"  the  Bishop  said 
naively.  "You  must  be  wrong.  I -know  that  there 
is  much  that  is  sad  and  wicked  in  this  world.  I  know 
that  the  Church  has  lost  the  —  what  you  call  the  pro- 
letariat." * 

"You  never  had  the  proletariat,"  Ernest  cried. 
"The  proletariat  has  grown  up  outside  the  Church  and 
without  the  Church." 

1  Proletariat :  Derived  originally  from  the  Latin  proletarii,  the  name 
given  in  the  census  of  Servius  Tullius  to  those  who  were  of  value 
to  the  state  only  as  the  rearers  of  offspring  (proles) ;  in  other  words, 
they  were  of  no  importance  either  for  wealth,  or  position,  or  excep- 
tional ability. 

D 


34  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"I  do  not  follow  you,"  the  Bishop  said  faintly. 

"Then  let  me  explain.  With  the  introduction  of 
machinery  and  the  factory  system  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  the  great  mass  of  the  working 
people  was  separated  from  the  land.  The  old  system 
of  labor  was  broken  down.  The  working  people  were 
driven  from  their  villages  and  herded  in  factory  towns. 
The  mothers  and  children  were  put  to  work  at  the  new 
machines.  Family  life  ceased.  The  conditions  were 
frightful.     It  is  a  tale  of  blood." 

"I  know,  I  know,"  Bishop  Morehouse  interrupted 
with  an  agonized  expression  on  his  face.  "It  was 
terrible.     But  it  occurred  a  century  and  a  half  ago." 

"And  there,  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  originated  the 

modern    proletariat,"    Ernest    continued.     "And    the 

Church  ignored  it.     While  a  slaughter-house  was  made 

of  the  nation  b}'  the  capitalists,  the  Church  was  dumb. 

It  did  not  protest,  as  to-day  it  does  not  protest.     As 

Austin  Lewis  1  says,  speaking  of  that  time,  those  to 

whom  the  command  'Feed  my  lambs'  had  been  given, 

saw  those  lambs  sold  into  slavery  and  worked  to  death 

without  a  protest.2     The  Church  was  dumb,  then,  and 

/ 

1  Candidate  for  Governor  of  California  on  the  Socialist  ticket  in  the 
fall  election  of  1906  Christian  Era.  An  Englishman  by  birth,  a  writer 
of  many  books  on  political  economy  and  philosophy,  and  one  of  the 
Socialist  leaders  of  the  times. 

2  There  is  no  more  horrible  page  in  history  than  the  treatment  ot 
the  child  and  women  slaves  in  the  English  factories  in  the  latter  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century  of  the  Christian  Era.  In  such  industrial 
hells  arose  some  of  the  proudest  fortunes  of  that  day. 


CHALLENGES  35 

before  I  go  on  I  want  you  either  flatly  to  agree  with  me 
or  flatly  to  disagree  with  me.  Was  the  Church  dumb 
then?" 

Bishop  Morehouse  hesitated.  Like  Dr.  Hammerfield, 
he  was  unused  to  this  fierce  "infighting,"  as  Ernest 
called  it. 

"The  history  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  written," 
Ernest  prompted.  "If  the  Church  was  not  dumb,  it 
will  be  found  not  dumb  in  the  books." 

"I  am  afraid  the  Church  was  dumb,"  the  Bishop 
confessed. 

"And  the  Church  is  dumb  to-day." 

"There  I  disagree,"  said  the  Bishop. 

Ernest  paused,  looked  at  him  searchingly,  and  ac- 
cepted the  challenge. 

"All  right,"  he  said.  "Let  us  see.  In  Chicago  there 
are  women  who  toil  all  the  week  for  ninety  cents. 
Has  the  Church  protested?" 

"This  is  news  to  me,"  was  the  answer.     " Ninety v 
cents  per  week!     It  is  horrible!" 

"Has  the  Church  protested?"    Ernest  insisted. 

"The  Church  does  not  know."  The  Bishop  was 
struggling  hard. 

"Yet  the  command  to  the  Church  was,  'Feed  my 
lambs,'"  Ernest  sneered.  And  then,  the  next  mo- 
ment, "Pardon  my  sneer,  Bishop.  But  can  you  won- 
der that  we  lose  patience  with  you?  When  have  you 
protested   to   your    capitalistic    congregations    at   the 


36  THE  IRON  HEEL 

working  of  children  in  the  Southern  cotton  mills?1 
Children,  six  and  seven  years  of  age,  working  every 
night  at  twelve-hour  shifts  ?  They  never  see  the  blessed 
sunshine.     They  die  like  flies.     The  dividends  are  paid 

1  Everhard  might  have  drawn  a  better  illustration  from  the  South- 
ern Church's  outspoken  defence  of  chattel  slavery  prior  to  what  is 
known  as  the  "  War  of  the  Rebellion."  Several  such  illustrations, 
culled  from  the  documents  of  the  times,  are  here  appended.  In 
1835  a.d.,  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  resolved 
that:  "slavery  is  recognized  in  both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments, 
and  is  not  condemned  by  the  authority  of  God."  The  Charleston  Bap- 
tist Association  issued  the  following,  in  an  address,  in  1835  a.d.: 
"  The  right  of  masters  to  dispose  of  the  time  of  their  slaves  has 
been  distinctly  recognized  by  the  Creator  of  all  things,  who  is  surely 
at  liberty  to  vest  the  right  of  property  over  any  object  whomsoever  He 
pleases."  The  Rev.  E.  D.  Simon,  Doctor  of  Divinity  and  professor 
in  the  Randolph-Macon  Methodist  College  of  Virginia,  wrote:  "Ex- 
tracts from  Holy  Writ  unequivocally  assert  the  right  of  property  in 
slaves,  together  with  the  usual  incidents  to  that  right.  The  right  to  buy 
and  sell  is  clearly  stated.  Upon  the  whole,  then,  whether  we  consult  the 
Jewish  policy  instituted  by  God  himself,  or  the  uniform  opinion  and 
practice  of  mankind  in  all  ages,  cr  the  injunctions  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  the  moral  law,  we  are  brought  to  the  conclusion  that  slavery 
is  not  immoral.  Having  established  the  point  that  the  first  African 
slaves  were  legally  brought  into  bondage,  the  right  to  detain  their  children 
in  bondage  follows  as  an  indispensable  consequence.  Thus  we  see  that 
the  slavery  that  exists  in  America  was  founded  in  right." 

It  is  not  at  all  remarkable  that  this  same  note  should  have  been 
struck  by  the  Church  a  generation  or  so  later  in  relation  to  the  defence 
of  capitalistic  property.  In  the  great  museum  at  Asgard  there  is  a 
book  entitled  "Essays  in  Application,"  written  by  Henry  van  Dyke. 
The  book  was  published  in  1905  of  the  Christian  Era.  From  what 
we  can  make  out,  Van  Dyke  must  have  been  a  Churchman.  The 
book  is  a  good  example  of  what  Everhard  would  have  called  bourgeois 
thinking.  Note  the  similarity  between  the  utterance  of  the  Charleston 
Baptist  Association  quoted  above,  and  the  following  utterance  of  Van 
Dyke  seventy  years  later :  "  The  Bible  teaches  that  God  owns  the  world. 
He  distributes  to  every  man  according  to  His  own  good  pleasure,  con- 
formably to  general  laws." 


CHALLENGES  37 

out  of  their  blood.  And  out  of  the  dividends  mag- 
nificent churches  are  builded  in  New  England,  wherein 
your  kind  preaches  pleasant  platitudes  to  the  sleek, 
full-bellied  recipients  of  those  dividends." 

"I  did  not  know,"  the  Bishop  murmured  faintly. 
His  face  was  pale,  and  he  seemed  suffering  from 
nausea. 

"Then  you  have  not  protested?" 

The  Bishop  shook  his  head. 

"Then  the  Church  is  dumb  to-day,  as  it  was  in  the 
eighteenth  century?" 

The  Bishop  was  silent,  and  for  once  Ernest  forbore 
to  press  the  point. 

"And  do  not  forget,  whenever  a  churchman  does 
protest,  that  he  is  discharged." 

"I  hardly  think  that  is  fair,"  was  the  objection. 

"Will  you  protest?"    Ernest  demanded. 

"Show  me  evils,  such  as  you  mention,  in  our  own  com- 
munity, and  I  will  protest." 

"I'll  show  you,"  Ernest  said  quietly.  "I  am  at  your 
disposal.     I  will  take  you  on  a  journey  through  hell." 

"And  I  shall  protest."  The  Bishop  straightened 
himself  in  his  chair,  and  over  his  gentle  face  spread  the 
harshness  of  the  warrior.  "The  Church  shall  not  be 
dumb!" 

"You  will  be  discharged,"  was  the  warning. 

"I  shall  prove  the  contrary,"  was  the  retort.  "I 
shall  prove,  if  what  you  say  is  so,  that  the  Church  has 


38  THE  IRON  HEEL 

erred  through  ignorance.  And,  furthermore,  I  hold  that 
whatever  is  horrible  in  industrial  society  is  due  to  the 
ignorance  of  the  capitalist  class.  It  will  mend  all  that  is 
wrong  as  soon  as  it  receives  the  message.  And  this 
message  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  deliver." 

Ernest  laughed.  He  laughed  brutally,  and  I  was 
driven  to  the  Bishop's  defence. 

" Remember,"  I  said,  "you  see  but  one  side  of  the 
shield.  There  is  much  good  in  us,  though  you  give  us 
credit  for  no  good  at  all.  Bishop  Morehouse  is  right. 
The  industrial  wrong,  terrible  as  you  say  it  is,  is  due 
to  ignorance.  The  divisions  of  society  have  become 
too  widely  separated." 

"The  wild  Indian  is  not  so  brutal  and  savage  as  the 
capitalist  class,"  he  answered;  and  in  that  moment  I 
hated  him. 

"You  do  not  know  us,"  I  answered.  "We  are  not 
brutal  and  savage." 

"Prove  it,"  he  challenged. 

"How  can  I  prove  it  .  .  .  to  you?"  I  was  growing 
angry. 

He  shook  his  head.  "I  do  not  ask  you  to  prove  it  to 
me.     I  ask  you  to  prove  it  to  yourself." 

"I  know,"  I  said. 

"You  know  nothing,"  was  his  rude  reply. 

"There,  there,  children,"  father  said  soothingly. 

"I  don't  care — "  I  began  indignantly,  but  Ernest 
interrupted. 


CHALLENGES  39 

"I  understand  you  have  money,  or  your  father  has, 
which  is  the  same  thing  —  money  invested  in  the  Sierra 
Mills." 

"What  has  that  to  do  with  it?"   I  cried. 

"Nothing  much,"  he  began  slowly,  "except  that  the 
gown  you  wear  is  stained  with  blood.  The  food  you 
eat  is  a  bloody  stew.  The  blood  of  little  children  and 
of  strong  men  is  dripping  from  your  very  roof-beams. 
I  can  close  my  eyes,  now,  and  hear  it  drip,  drop,  drip, 
drop,  all  about  me." 

And  suiting  the  action  to  the  words,  he  closed  his 
eyes  and  leaned  back  in  his  chair.  I  burst  into  tears 
of  mortification  and  hurt  vanity.  I  had  never  been  so 
brutally  treated  in  my  life.  Both  the  Bishop  and  my 
father  were  embarrassed  and  perturbed.  They  tried 
to  lead  the  conversation  away  into  easier  channels; 
but  Ernest  opened  his  eyes,  looked  at  me,  and  waved 
them  aside.  His  mouth  was  stern,  and  his  eyes  too ; 
and  in  the  latter  there  was  no  glint  of  laughter.  What 
he  was  about  to  say,  what  terrible  castigation  he  was 
going  to  give  me,  I  never  knew ;  for  at  that  moment 
a  man,  passing  along  the  sidewalk,  stopped  and  glanced 
in  at  us.  He  was  a  large  man,  poorly  dressed,  and 
on  his  back  was  a  great  load  of  rattan  and  bamboo 
stands,  chairs,  and  screens.  He  looked  at  the  house 
as  if  debating  whether  or  not  he  should  come  in  and 
try  to  sell  some  of  his  wares. 

"That  man's  name  is  Jackson,"  Ernest  said. 


40  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"With  that  strong  body  of  his  he  should  be  at  work, 
and  not  peddling,"  l  I  answered  curtly. 

"Notice  the  sleeve  of  his  left  arm,"  Ernest  said 
gently. 

I  looked,  and  saw  that  the  sleeve  was  empty. 

"It  was  some  of  the  blood  from  that  arm  that  I 
heard  dripping  from  your  rocf-beams,"  Ernest  said  with 
continued  gentleness.  "He  lost  his  arm  in  the  Sierra 
Mills,  and  like  a  broken-down  horse  you  turned  him  out 
on  the  highway  to  die.  When  I  say  'you/  I  mean  the 
superintendent  and  the  officials  that  you  and  the  other 
stockholders  pay  to  manage  the  mills  for  you.  It  was 
an  accident.  It  was  caused  by  his  trying  to  save  the 
company  a  few  dollars.  The  toothed  drum  of  the  picker 
caught  his  arm.  He  might  have  let  the  small  flint  that 
he  saw  in  the  teeth  go  through.  It  would  have  smashed 
out  a  double  row  of  spikes.  But  he  reached  for  the 
flint,  and  his  arm  was  picked  and  clawed  to  shreds  from 
the  finger  tips  to  the  shoulder.  It  was  at  night.  The 
mills  were  working  overtime.  They  paid  a  fat  dividend 
that  quarter.  Jackson  had  been  working  many  hours, 
and  his  muscles  had  lost  their  resiliency  and  snap. 
They  made  his  movements  a  bit  slow.  That  was  why 
the  machine  caught  him.  He  had  a  wife  and  three 
children." 

1  In  that  day  there  were  many  thousands  of  these  poor  merchants 
called  pedlers.  They  carried  their  whole  stock  in  trade  from  door  to 
door.  It  was  a  most  wasteful  expenditure  of  energy.  Distribution 
was  as  confused  and  irrational  as  the  whole  general  system  of  society. 


CHALLENGES  41 

"And  what  did  the  company  do  for  him?"  I 
asked. 

"Nothing.  Oh,  yes,  they  did  do  something.  They 
successfully  fought  the  damage  suit  he  brought  when 
he  came  out  of  hospital.  The  company  employs  very 
efficient  lawyers,  you  know." 

"You  have  not  told  the  whole  story,"  I  said  with 
conviction.  "Or  else  you  do  not  know  the  whole  story. 
Maybe  the  man  was  insolent." 

"Insolent!  Ha!  ha!"  His  laughter  was  Meph- 
istophelian.  "  Great  God  !  Insolent !  And  with  his 
arm  chewed  off !  Nevertheless  he  was  a  meek  and 
lowly  servant,  and  there  is  no  record  of  his  having  been 
insolent." 

"But  the  courts,"  I  urged.  "The  case  would  not 
have  been  decided  against  him  had  there  been  no  more 
to  the  affair  than  you  have  mentioned." 

"Colonel  Ingram  is  leading  counsel  for  the  company. 
He  is  a  shrewd  lawyer."  Ernest  looked  at  me  intently 
for  a  moment,  then  went  on.  "I'll  tell  you  what  you 
do,  Miss  Cunningham.  You  investigate  Jackson's 
case." 

"I  had  already  determined  to,"  I  said  coldly. 

"All  right,"  he  beamed  good-naturedly,  "and  I'll 
tell  you  where  to  find  him.  But  I  tremble  for  you  when 
I  think  of  all  you  are  to  prove  by  Jackson's  arm." 

And  so  it  came  about  that  both  the  Bishop  and  I 
accepted  Ernest's   challenges.     They  went   away    to' 


42  THE  IRON  HEEL 

gether,  leaving  me  smarting  with  a  sense  of  injustice 
that  had  been  done  me  and  my  class.  The  man  was  a 
beast.  I  hated  him,  then,  and  consoled  myself  with 
the  thought  that  his  behavior  was  what  was  to  be  ex- 
pected from  a  man  of  the  working  class. 


CHAPTER  IH 
jackson's  arm 

Little  did  I  dream  the  fateful  part  Jackson's  arm 
was  to  play  in  my  life.  Jackson  himself  did  not  impress 
me  when  I  hunted  him  out.  I  found  him  in  a  crazy, 
ramshackle  1  house  down  near  the  bay  on  the  edge  of 
the  marsh.  Pools  of  stagnant  water  stood  around  the 
house,  their  surfaces  covered  with  a  green  and  putrid- 
looking  scum,  while  the  stench  that  arose  from  them 
was  intolerable. 

I  found  J  ackson  the  meek  and  lowly  man  he  had  been 
described.  He  was  making  some  sort  of  rattan-work, 
and  he  toiled  on  stolidly  while  I  talked  with  him.  But 
in  spite  of  his  meekness  and  lowliness,  I  fancied  I 
caught  the  first  note  of  a  nascent  bitterness  in  him 
when  he  said : 

"They  might  a-given  me  a  job  as  watchman,2  any- 
way." 

1  An  adjective  descriptive  of  ruined  and  dilapidated  houses  in 
which  great  numbers  of  the  working  people  found  shelter  in  those  days. 
They  invariably  paid  rent,  and,  considering  the  value  of  such  houses, 
enormous  ient,  to  the  landlords. 

2  In  those  days  thievery  was  incredibly  prevalent.  Everybody 
stole  property  from  everybody  else.  The  lords  of  society  stole  le- 
gally or  else  legalized  their  stealing,  while  the  poorer  classes  stole  ille- 

43 


44  THE  IRON  HEEL 

I  got  little  out  of  him.  He  struck  me  as  stupid, 
and  yet  the  deftness  with  which  he  worked  with  his 
one  hand  seemed  to  belie  his  stupidity.  This  sug- 
gested an  idea  to  me. 

"How  did  you  happen  to  get  your  arm  caught  in  the 
machine  ?"  I  asked. 

He  looked  at  me  in  a  slow  and  pondering  way,  and 
shook  his  head.     "I  don't  know.     It  just  happened." 

"Carelessness?"   I  prompted. 

"No,"  he  answered,  "I  ain't  for  callin'  it  that.  I 
was  workin'  overtime,  an'  I  guess  I  was  tired  out  some. 
I  worked  seventeen  years  in  them  mills,  an'  I've  took 
notice  that  most  of  the  accidents  happens  just  before 
whistle-blow.1  I'm  willin'  to  bet  that  more  accidents 
happens  in  the  hour  before  whistle-blow  than  in  all  the 
rest  of  the  day.  A  man  ain't  so  quick  after  workin' 
steady  for  hours.  I've  seen  too  many  of  'em  cut  up  an7 
gouged  an'  chawed  not  to  know." 

"Many  of  them?"   I  queried. 

"Hundreds  an'  hundreds,  an'  children,  too." 

Witfi  the  exception  of  the  terrible  details,  Jackson's 
story  of  his  accident  was  the  same  as  that  I  had,already 

gaily.  Nothing  was  safe  unless  guarded.  Enormous  numbers  of 
men  were  employed  as  watchmen  to  protect  property.  The  houses 
of  the  well-to-do  were  a  combination  of  safe  deposit  vault  and  for- 
tress. The  appropriation  of  the  personal  belongings  of  others  by  our 
own  children  of  to-day  is  looked  upon  as  a  rudimentary  survival  of 
the  theft-characteristic  that  in  those  early  times  was  universal. 

1  The  laborers  were  called  to  work  and  dismissed  by  savage, 
screaming,  nerve-racking  steam-whistles. 


JACKSON'S  ARM  45 

heard.  When  I  asked  him  if  he  had  broken  some  rule 
of  working  the  machinery,  he  shook  his  head. 

"I  chucked  off  the  belt  with  my  right  hand,"  he  said, 
"an'  made  a  reach  for  the  flint  with  my  left.  I  didn't 
stop  to  see  if  the  belt  was  off.  I  thought  my  right 
hand  had  done  it  —  only  it  didn't.  I  reached  quick, 
and  the  belt  wasn't  all  the  way  off.  And  then  my 
arm  was  chewed  off." 

"It  must  have  been  painful,"  I  said  sympathetically. 

"The  crunchin'  of  the  bones  wasn't  nice,"  was  his 
answer. 

His  mind  was  rather  hazy  concerning  the  damage 
suit.  Only  one  thing  was  clear  to  him,  and  that  was 
that  he  had  not  got  any  damages.  He  had  a  feeling 
that  the  testimony  of  the  foremen  and  the  superin- 
tendent had  brought  about  the  adverse  decision  of  the 
court.  Their  testimony,  as  he  put  it,  "wasn't  what 
it  ought  to  have  ben."     And  to  them  I  resolved  to  go. 

One  thing  was  plain,  Jackson's  situation  was 
wretched.  His  wife  was  in  ill  health,  and  he  was  un- 
able to  earn,  by  his  rattan-work  and  peddling,  suffi- 
cient food  for  the  family.  He  was  back  in  his  rent,  and 
the  oldest  boy,  a  lad  of  eleven,  had  started  to  work  in 
the  mills. 

"They  might  a-given  me  that  watchman's  job," 
were  his  last  words  as  I  went  away. 

By  the  time  I  had  seen  the  lawyer  who  had  handled 
Jackson's  case,  and  the  two  foremen  and  the  superin- 


46  THE  IRON  HEEL 

tendent  at  the  mills  who  had  testified,  I  began  to  feel 
that  there  was  something  after  all  in  Ernest's  contention. 

He  was  a  weak  and  inefficient-looking  man,  the  law- 
yer, and  at  sight  of  him  I  did  not  wonder  that  Jackson's 
case  had  been  lost.  My  first  thought  was  that  it  had 
served  Jackson  right  for  getting  such  a  lawyer.  But  the 
next  moment  two  of  Ernest's  statements  came  flashing 
into  my  consciousness:  "The  company  employs  very 
efficient  lawyers"  and  "Colonel  Ingram  is  a  shrewd 
lawyer."  I  did  some  rapid  thinking.  It  dawned 
upon  me  that  of  course  the  company  could  afford  finer 
legal  talent  than  could  a  workingman  like  Jackson. 
But  this  was  merely  a  minor  detail.  There  was  some 
very  good  reason,  I  was  sure,  why  Jackson's  case  had 
gone  against  him. 

"Why  did  you  lose  the  case?"   I  asked. 

The  lawyer  was  perplexed  and  worried  for  a  moment, 
and  I  found  it  in  my  heart  to  pity  the  wretched  little 
creature.  Then  he  began  to  whine.  I  do  believe  his 
whine  was  congenital.  He  was  a  man  beaten  at  birth. 
He  whined  about  the  testimony.  The  witnesses  had 
given  only  the  evidence  that  helped  the  other  side. 
Not  one  word  could  he  get  out  of  them  that  would  have 
helped  Jackson.  They  knew  which  side  their  bread 
was  buttered  on.  Jackson  was  a  fool.  He  had  been 
brow-beaten  and  confused  by  Colonel  Ingram.  Colonel 
Ingram  was  brilliant  at  cross-examination.  He  had 
made  Jackson  answer  damaging  questions. 


JACKSON'S  ARM  47 

"How  could  his  answers  be  damaging  if  he  had  the 
right  on  his  side?"  I  demanded. 

"What's  right  got  to  do  with  it?"  he  demanded  back. 
"You  see  all  those  books."  He  moved  his  hand  over 
the  array  of  volumes  on  the  walls  of  his  tiny  office. 
"All  my  reading  and  studying  of  them  has  taught  me 
that  law  is  one  thing  and  right  is  another  thing.  Ask 
any  lawyer.  You  go  to  Sunday-school  to  learn  what  is 
right.     But  you  go  to  those  books  to  learn  .  .  .  law." 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  Jackson  had  the  right 
on  his  side  and  yet  was  beaten  ?"  I  queried  tentatively. 
"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  there  is  no  justice  in 
Judge  Caldwell's  court?" 

The  little  lawyer  glared  at  me  a  moment,  and  then 
the  belligerence  faded  out  of  his  face. 

"I  hadn't  a  fair  chance,"  he  began  whining  again. 
"They  made  a  fool  out  of  Jackson  and  out  of  me,  too. 
What  chance  had  I  ?  Colonel  Ingram  is  a  great  lawyer. 
If  he  wasn't  great,  would  he  have  charge  of  the  law 
business  of  the  Sierra  Mills,  of  the  Erston  Land  Syndi- 
cate, of  the  Berkeley  Consolidated,  of  the  Oakland, 
San  Leandro,  and  Pleasanton  Electric?  He's  a  cor- 
poration lawyer,  and  corporation  lawyers  are  not  paid 
for  being  fools.1     What  do  you  think  the  Sierra  Mills 

1  The  function  of  the  corporation  lawyer  was  to  serve,  by  corrupt 
methods,  the  money-grabbing  propensities  of  the  corporations.  It  is 
on  record  that  Theodore  Roosevelt,  at  that  time  President  of  the 
United  States,  said  in  1905  a.d.,  in  his  address  at  Harvard  Commence- 
ment :    "  We  all  know  that,  as  things  actually  are,  many  of  the  most 


48  THE  IRON  HEEL 

alone  give  him  twenty  thousand  dollars  a  year  for? 
Because  he's  worth  twenty  thousand  dollars  a  year 
to  them,  that's  what  for.  I'm  not  worth  that  much. 
If  I  was,  I  wouldn't  be  on  the  outside,  starving  and 
taking  cases  like  Jackson's.  What  do  you  think  I'd 
have  got  if  I'd  won  Jackson's  case?" 

"You'd  have  robbed  him,  most  probably,"  *  I  an- 
swered. 

"Of  course  I  would,"  he  cried  angrily.  "I've  got  to 
live,  haven't  I?"1 

"He  has  a  wife  and  children,"  I  chided. 

"So  have  I  a  wife  and  children,"  he  retorted.  "And 
there's  not  a  soul  in  this  world  except  myself  that  cares 
whether  they  starve  or  not." 

His  face  suddenly  softened,  and  he  opened  his  watch 
and  showed  me  a  small  photograph  of  a  woman  and  two 
little  girls  pasted  inside  the  case. 

"There  they  are.  Look  at  them.  We've  had  a 
hard  time,  a  hard  time.  I  had  hoped  to  send  them 
away  to  the  country  if  I'd  won  Jackson's  case.  They're 
not  healthy  here,  but  I  can't  afford  to  send  them 
away." 

influential  and  most  highly  remunerated  members  of  the  Bar  in  every 
centre  of  wealth,  make  it  their  special  task  to  ivork  out  bold  and  ingenious 
schemes  by  which  their  wealthy  clients,  individual  or  corporate,  can  evade 
the  laws  which  were  made  to  regulate,  in  the  interests  of  the  public,  the 
uses  of  great  wealth." 

1  A  typical  illustration  of  the  internecine  strife  that  permeated  all 
society.  Men  preyed  upon  one  another,  like  ravening  wolves.  The 
big  wolves  ate  the  little  wolves,  and  in  the  social  pack  Jackson  was  one 
of  the  least  of  the  little  wolves. 


JACKSON'S  ARM  49 

When  I  started  to  leave,  he  dropped  back  into  his 
whine. 

"I  hadn't  the  ghost  of  a  chance.  Colonel  Ingram 
and  Judge  Caldwell  are  pretty  friendly.  I'm  not  saying 
that  if  I'd  got  the  right  kind  of  testimony  out  of  their 
witnesses  on  cross-examination,  that  friendship  would 
have  decided  the  case.  And  yet  I  must  say  that  Judge 
Caldwell  did  a  whole  lot  to  prevent  my  getting  that 
very  testimony.  Why,  Judge  Caldwell  and  Colonel 
Ingram  belong  to  the  same  lodge  and  the  same  club. 
They  live  in  the  same  neighborhood  —  one  I  can't 
afford.  And  their  wives  are  always  in  and  out  of  each 
other's  houses.  They're  always  having  whist  parties 
and  such  things  back  and  forth." 

"And  yet  you  think  Jackson  had  the  right  of 
it?"  I  asked,  pausing  for  the  moment  on  the  thresh- 
old. 

"I  don't  think;  I  know  it,"  was  his  answer.  "And 
at  first  I  thought  he  had  some  show,  too.  But  I 
didn't  tell  my  wife.  I  didn't  want  to  disappoint  her. 
She  had  her  heart  set  on  a  trip  to  the  country  hard 
enough  as  it  was." 

"Why  did  you  not  call  attention  to  the  fact  that 
Jackson  was  trying  to  save  the  machinery  from  being 
injured?"  I  asked  Peter  Donnelly,  one  of  the  foremen 
who  had  testified  at  the  trial. 

He  pondered  a  long  time  before  replying.  Then  he 
cast  an  anxious  look  about  him  and  said: 


50  '  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"Because  I've  a  good  wife  an'  three  of  the  sweetest 
children  ye  ever  laid  eyes  on,  that's  why." 

"I  do  not  understand,"  I  said. 

"In  other  words,  because  it  wouldn't  a-ben  healthy," 
he  answered. 

"You  mean  —  "I  began. 

But  he  interrupted  passionately. 

"I  mean  what  I  said.  It's  long  years  I've  worked  in 
the  mills.  I  began  as  a  little  lad  on  the  spindles.  I 
worked  up  ever  since.  It's  by  hard  work  I  got  to 
my  present  exalted  position.  I'm  a  foreman,  if  you 
please.  An'  I  doubt  me  if  there's  a  man  in  the  mills 
that'd  put  out  a  hand  to  drag  me  from  drownin'.  I 
used  to  belong  to  the  union.  But  I've  stayed  by  the 
company  through  two  strikes.  They  called  me  'scab.' 
There's  not  a  man  among  'em  to-day  to  take  a  drink 
with  me  if  I  asked  him.  D'ye  see  the  scars  on  me  head 
where  I  was  struck  with  flying  bricks?  There  ain't 
a  child  at  the  spindles  but  what  would  curse  me  name. 
Me  only  friend  is  the  company.  It's  not  me  duty,  but 
me  bread  an'  butter  an'  the  life  of  me  children  to  stand 
by  the  mills.     That's  why." 

"Was  Jackson  to  blame?"  I  asked. 

"He  should  a-got  the  damages.  He  was  a  good 
worker  an'  never  made  trouble." 

"Then  you  were  not  at  liberty  to  tell  the  whole 
truth,  as  you  had  sworn  to  do?" 

He  shook  his  head. 


JACKSON'S  ARM  51 

"The  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the 
truth?"  I  said  solemnly. 

Again  his  face  became  impassioned,  and  he  lifted 
it,  not  to  me,  but  to  heaven. 

"I'd  let  me  soul  an'  body  burn  in  everlastin'  hell 
for  them  children  of  mine,"  was  his  answer. 

Henry  Dallas,  the  superintendent,  was  a  vulpine- 
faced  creature  who  regarded  me  insolently  and  refused 
to  talk.  Not  a  word  could  I  get  from  him  concerning 
the  trial  and  his  testimony.  But  with  the  other  fore- 
man I  had  better  luck.  James  Smith  was  a  hard-faced 
man,  and  my  heart  sank  as  I  encountered  him.  He, 
too,  gave  me  the  impression  that  he  was  not  a  free 
agent,  and  as  we  talked  I  began  to  see  that  he  was  men- 
tally superior  to  the  average  of  his  kind.  He  agreed 
with  Peter  Donnelly  that  Jackson  should  have  got 
damages,  and  he  went  farther  and  called  the  action 
heartless  and  cold-blooded  that  had  turned  the  worker 
adrift  after  he  had  been  made  helpless  by  the  accident. 
Also,  he  explained  that  there  were  many  accidents 
in  the  mills,  and  that  the  company's  policy  was 
to  fight  to  the  bitter  end  all  consequent  damage 
suits. 

"It  means  hundreds  of  thousands  a  year  to  the  stock- 
holders," he  said;  and  as  he  spoke  I  remembered  the 
last  dividend  that  had  been  paid  my  father,  and  the 
pretty  gown  for  me  and  the  books  for  him  that  had 
been   bought   out   of  that   dividend.     I   remembered 


52  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Ernest's  charge  that  my  gown  was  stained  with  blood, 
and  my  flesh  began  to  crawl  underneath  my  garments. 

"When  you  testified  at  the  trial,  you  didn't  point  out 
that  Jackson  received  his  accident  through  trying  to 
save  the  machinery  from  damage?"  I  said. 

"No,  I  did  not,"  was  the  answer,  and  his  mouth  set 
bitterly.  "I  testified  to  the  effect  that  Jackson  injured 
himself  by  neglect  and  carelessness,  and  that  the  com- 
pany was  not  in  any  way  to  blame  or  liable." 

"Was  it  carelessness?"    I  asked. 

"Call  it  that,  oranythingyou  want  to  call  it.  The  fact 
is,  a  man  gets  tired  after  he's  been  working  for  hours." 

I  was  becoming  interested  in  the  man.  He  certainly 
was  of  a  superior  kind. 

"You  are  better  educated  than  most  workingmen," 
I  said. 

"I  went  through  high  school,"  he  replied.  "I 
worked  my  way  through  doing  janitor-work.  I  wanted 
to  go  through  the  university.  But  my  father  died, 
and  I  came  to  work  in  the  mills. 

"I  wanted  to  become  a  naturalist,"  he  explained 
shyly,  as  though  confessing  a  weakness.  "I  love 
animals.  But  I  came  to  work  in  the  mills.  When  I 
was  promoted  to  foreman  I  got  married,  then  the  family 
came,  and  .  .  .  well,  I  wasn't  my  own  boss  any  more." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?"  I  asked. 

"I  was  explaining  why  I  testified  at  the  trial  the  way 
I  did  —  why  I  followed  instructions." 


JACKSON'S  ARM  53 

" Whose  instructions?" 

"Colonel  Ingram.  He  outlined  the  evidence  I  was 
to  give." 

"And  it  lost  Jackson's  case  for  him." 

He  nodded,  and  the  blood  began  to  rise  darkly  in  his 
face. 

"And  Jackson  had  a  wife  and  two  children  dependent 
on  him." 

"I  know,"  he  said  quietly,  though  his  face  was  grow- 
ing darker. 

"Tell  me,"  I  went  on,  "was  it  easy  to  make  yourself 
over  from  what  you  were,  say  in  high  school,  to  the  man 
you  must  have  become  to  do  such  a  thing  at  the  trial?" 

The  suddenness  of  his  outburst  startled  and  fright- 
ened me.  He  ripped  x  out  a  savage  oath,  and  clenched 
his  fist  as  though  about  to  strike  me. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said  the  next  moment.  "No, 
it  was  not  easy.  And  now  I  guess  you  can  go  away. 
You've  got  all  you  wanted  out  of  me.  But  let  me  tell 
you  this  before  you  go.  It  won't  do  you  any  good  to 
repeat  anything  I've  said.  I'll  deny  it,  and  there  are 
no  witnesses.  I'll  deny  every  word  of  it ;  and  if  I 
have  to,  I'll  do  it  under  oath  on  the  witness  stand." 

After  my  interview  with  Smith  I  went  to  my  father's 
office  in  the  Chemistry  Building  and  there  encountered 

1  It  is  interesting  to  note  the  virilities  of  language  that  were  com- 
mon speech  in  that  day,  as  indicative  of  the  life,  'red  of  claw  and  fang,' 
that  was  then  lived.  Reference  is  here  made,  of  course,  not  to  the 
oath  of  Smith,  but  to  the  verb  ripped  used  by  Avis  Everhard. 


54  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Ernest.  It  was  quite  unexpected,  but  he  met  me  with 
his  bold  eyes  and  firm  hand-clasp,  and  with  that  curi- 
ous blend  of  his  of  awkwardness  and  ease.  It  was  as 
though  our  last  stormy  meeting  was  forgotten ;  but  I 
was  not  in  the  mood  to  have  it  forgotten. 

"I  have  been  looking  up  Jackson's  case,"  I  said 
abruptly. 

He  was  all  interested  attention,  and  waited  for  me  to 
go  on,  though  I  could  see  in  his  eyes  the  certitude  that 
my  convictions  had  been  shaken. 

"He  seems  to  have  been  badly  treated,"  I  confessed. 
"I  —  I  —  think  some  of  his  blood  is  dripping  from  our 
roof-beams." 

"Of  course,"  he  answered.  "If  Jackson  and  all  his 
fellows  were  treated  mercifully,  the  dividends  would 
not  be  so  large." 

"I  shall  never  be  able  to  take  pleasure  in  pretty  gowns 
again,"  I  added. 

I  felt  humble  and  contrite,  and  was  aware  of  a  sweet 
feeling  that  Ernest  was  a  sort  of  father  confessor. 
Then,  as  ever  after,  his  strength  appealed  to  me.  It 
seemed  to  radiate  a  promise  of  peace  and  protec- 
tion. 

"Nor  will  you  be  able  to  take  pleasure  in  sackcloth," 
he  said  gravely.  "There  are  the  jute  mills,  you  know, 
and  the  same  thing  goes  on  there.  It  goes  on  every- 
where. Our  boasted  civilization  is  based  upon  blood, 
soaked  in  blood,  and  neither  you  nor  I  nor  any  of  us 


JACKSON'S  ARM  55 

can  escape  the  scarlet  stain.  The  men  you  talked  with 
—  who  were  they?" 

I  told  him  all  that  had  taken  place. 

"And  not  one  of  them  was  a  free  agent,"  he  said. 
"They  were  all  tied  to  the  merciless  industrial  machine. 
And  the  pathos  of  it  and  the  tragedy  is  that  they  are 
tied  by  their  heart-strings.  Their  children  —  always 
the  young  life  that  it  is  their  instinct  to  protect.  This 
instinct  is  stronger  than  any  ethic  they  possess.  My 
father !  He  lied,  he  stole,  he  did  all  sorts  of  dishon- 
orable things  to  put  bread  into  my  mouth  and  into  the 
mouths  of  my  brothers  and  sisters.  He  was  a  slave  to 
the  industrial  machine,  and  it  stamped  his  life  out, 
worked  him  to  death." 

"But  you,"  I  interjected.  "You  are  surely  a  free 
agent." 

"Not  wholly,"  he  replied.  "I  am  not  tied  by  my 
heart-strings.  I  am  often  thankful  that  I  have  no 
children,  and  I  dearly  love  children.  Yet  if  I  married 
I  should  not  dare  to  have  any." 

"That  surely  is  bad  doctrine,"  I  cried. 

"I  know  it  is,"  he  said  sadly.  "But  it  is  expedient 
doctrine.  I  am  a  revolutionist,  and  it  is  a  perilous 
vocation." 

I  laughed  incredulously. 

"If  I  tried  to  enter  your  father's  house  at  night  to 
steal  his  dividends  from  the  Sierra  Mills,  what  would  he 
do?" 


56  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"He  sleeps  with  a  revolver  on  the  stand  by  the  bed," 
I  answered.     "He  would  most  probably  shoot  you." 

"And  if  I  and  a  few  others  should  lead  a  million  and 
a  half  of  men1  into  the  houses  of  all  the  well-to-do,  there 
would  be  a  great  deal  of  shooting,  wouldn't  there?" 

"Yes,  but  you  are  not  doing  that,"  I  objected. 

"It  is  precisely  what  I  am  doing.  And  we  intend  to 
take,  not  the  mere  wealth  in  the  houses,  but  all  the 
sources  of  that  wealth,  all  the  mines,  and  railroads,  and 
factories,  and  banks,  and  stores.  That  is  the  revolution. 
It  is  truly  perilous.  There  will  be  more  shooting,  I  am 
afraid,  than  even  I  dream  of.  But  as  I  was  saying,  no 
one  to-day  is  a  free  agent.  We  are  all  caught  up  in  the 
wheels  and  cogs  of  the  industrial  machine.  You  found 
that  you  were,  and  that  the  men  you  talked  with  were. 
Talk  with  more  of  them.  Go  and  see  Colonel  Ingram. 
Look  up  the  reporters  that  kept  Jackson's  case  out  of 
the  papers,  and  the  editors  that  run  the  papers.  You 
will  find  them  all  slaves  of  the  machine." 

A  little  later  in  our  conversation  I  asked  him  a  sim- 
ple little  question  about  the  liability  of  workingmen  to 
accidents,  and  received  a  statistical  lecture  in  return. 

"It  is  all  in  the  books,"  he  said.  "The  figures  have 
been  gathered,  and  it  has  been  proved  conclusively  that 

1  This  reference  is  to  the  socialist  vote  cast  in  the  United  States  in 
1910.  The  rise  of  this  vote  clearly  indicates  the  swift  growth  of  the 
party  of  revolution.  Its  voting  strength  in  the  United  States  in  18S8 
was  2068;  in  1902,  127,713;  in  1904,  435,040;  in  1908,  1,108,427; 
and  in  1910,  1,688,211. 

Sot  >  /.»b«»» 


JACKSON'S  ARM  57 

accidents  rarely  occur  in  the  first  hours  of  the  morning 
work,  but  that  they  increase  rapidly  in  the  succeeding 
hours  as  the  workers  grow  tired  and  slower  in  both 
their  muscular  and  mental  processes. 

"Why,  do  you  know  that  your  father  has  three  times 
as  many  chances  for  safety  of  life  and  limb  than  has  a 
workingman?  He  has.  The  insurance1  companies 
know.  They  will  charge  him  four  dollars  and  twenty 
cents  a  year  on  a  thousand-dollar  accident  policy,  and 
for  the  same  policy  they  will  charge  a  laborer  fifteen 
dollars." 

"And  you?"  I  asked;  and  in  the  moment  of  asking 
I  was  aware  of  a  solicitude  that  was  something  more 
than  slight. 

"Oh,  as  a  revolutionist,  I  have  about  eight  chances 
to  the  workingman 's  one  of  being  injured  or  killed," 
he  answered  carelessly.  "The  insurance  companies 
charge  the  highly  trained  chemists  that  handle  explo- 
sives eight  times  what  they  charge  the  workingmen. 
I  don't  thinkthey'd  insure  me  at  all.    Why  did  you  ask?" 

My  eyes  fluttered,  and  I  could  feel  the  blood  warm  in 
my  face.     It  was  not  that  he  had  caught  me  in  my 

1  In  the  terrible  wolf-struggle  of  those  centuries,  no  man  was  per- 
manently safe,  no  matter  how  much  wealth  he  amassed.  Out  of  fear 
for  the  welfare  of  their  families,  men  devised  the  scheme  of  insurance. 
To  us,  in  this  intelligent  age,  such  a  device  is  laughably  absurd  and 
primitive.  But  in  that  age  insurance  was  a  very  serious  matter.  The 
amusing  part  of  it  is  that  the  funds  of  the  insurance  companies  were 
frequently  plundered  and  wasted  by  the  very  officials  who  were  in- 
trusted with  the  management  of  them. 


58  THE  IRON  HEEL 

solicitude,  but  that  I  had  caught  myself,  and  in  his 
presence. 

Just  then  my  father  came  in  and  began  making 
preparations  to  depart  with  me.  Ernest  returned 
some  books  he  had  borrowed,  and  went  away  first. 
But  just  as  he  was  going,  he  turned  and  said: 

"Oh,  by  the  way,  while  you  are  ruining  your  own 
peace  of  mind  and  I  am  ruining  the  Bishop's,  you'd 
better  look  up  Mrs.  Wickson  and  Mrs.  Pertonwaithe. 
Their  husbands,  you  know,  are  the  two  principal  stock- 
holders in  the  Mills.  Like  all  the  rest  of  humanity, 
those  two  women  are  tied  to  the  machine,  but  they  are 
so  tied  that  they  sit  on  top  of  it." 


CHAPTER  IV 

SLAVES  OF  THE   MACHINE 

The  more  I  thought  of  Jackson's  arm,  the  more  shaken 
I  was.  I  was  confronted  by  the  concrete.  For  the 
first  time  I  was  seeing  life.  My  university  life,  and 
study  and  culture,  had  not  been  real.  I  had  learned 
nothing  but  theories  of  life  and  society  that  looked  all 
very  well  on  the  printed  page,  but  now  I  had  seen  life 
itself.  Jackson's  arm  was  a  fact  of  life.  "The  fact, 
man,  the  irrefragable  fact !"  of  Ernest's  was  ringing  in 
my  consciousness. 

It  seemed  monstrous,  impossible,  that  our  whole 
society  was  based  upon  blood.  And  yet  there  was 
Jackson.  I  could  not  get  away  from  him.  Constantly 
my  thought  swung  back  to  him  as  the  compass  to  the 
Pole.  He  had  been  monstrously  treated.  His  blood 
had  not  been  paid  for  in  order  that  a  larger  dividend 
might  be  paid.  And  I  knew  a  score  of  happy  compla- 
cent families  that  had  received  those  dividends  and 
by  that  much  had  profited  by  Jackson's  blood.  If  one 
man  could  be  so  monstrously  treated  and  society  move 
on  its  way  unheeding,  might  not    many  men  be  so 

59 


60  THE  IRON  HEEL 

monstrously  treated?  I  remembered  Ernest's  women 
of  Chicago  who  toiled  for  ninety  cents  a  week,  and  the 
child  slaves  of  the  Southern  cotton  mills  he  had  described. 
And  I  could  see  their  wan  white  hands,  from  which  the 
blood  had  been  pressed,  at  work  upon  the  cloth  out  of 
which  had  been  made  my  gown.  And  then  I  thought 
of  the  Sierra  Mills  and  the  dividends  that  had  been 
paid,  and  I  saw  the  blood  of  Jackson  upon  my  gown  as 
well.  Jackson  I  could  not  escape.  Always  my  medi- 
tations led  me  back  to  him. 

Down  in  the  depths  of  me  I  had  a  feeling  that  I  stood 
on  the  edge  of  a  precipice.  It  was  as  though  I  were 
about  to  see  a  new  and  awful  revelation  of  life.  And 
not  I  alone.  My  whole  world  was  turning  over. 
There  was  my  father.  I  could  see  the  effect  Ernest 
was  beginning  to  have  on  him.  And  then  there  was 
the  Bishop.  When  I  had  last  seen  him  he  had  looked 
a  sick  man.  He  was  at  high  nervous  tension,  and  in  his 
eyes  there  was  unspeakable  horror.  From  the  little 
I  learned  I  knew  that  Ernest  had  been  keeping  his 
promise  of  taking  him  through  hell.  But  what  scenes 
of  hell  the  Bishop's  eyes  had  seen,  I  knew  not,  for  he 
seemed  too  stunned  to  speak  about  them. 

Once,  the  feeling  strong  upon  me  that  my  little  world 
and  all  the  world  was  turning  over,  I  thought  of  Ernest 
as  the  cause  of  it;  and  also  I  thought,  "We  were  so 
happy  and  peaceful  before  he  came!"  And  the  next 
moment  I  was  aware  that  the  thought  was  a  treason 


SLAVES  OF  THE  MACHINE  61 

against  truth,  and  Ernest  rose  before  me  transfigured, 
the  apostle  of  truth,  with  shining  brows  and  the  fear- 
lessness of  one  of  God's  own  angels,  battling  for  the 
truth  and  the  right,  and  battling  for  the  succor  of  the 
poor  and  lonely  and  oppressed.  And  then  there  arose 
before  me  another  figure,  the  Christ !  He,  too,  had 
taken  the  part  of  the  lowly  and  oppressed,  and  against 
all  the  established  power  of  priest  and  pharisee.  And 
I  remembered  his  end  upon  the  cross,  and  my  heart 
contracted  with  a  pang  as  I  thought  of  Ernest.  Was 
he,  too,  destined  for  a  cross  ?  —  he,  with  his  clarion  call 
and  war-noted  voice,  and  all  the  fine  man's  vigor  of  him  ! 

And  in  that  moment  I  knew  that  I  loved  him,  and 
that  I  was  melting  with  desire  to  comfort  him.  I 
thought  of  his  life.  A  sordid,  harsh,  and  meagre  life 
it  must  have  been.  And  I  thought  of  his  father,  who 
had  lied  and  stolen  for  him  and  been  worked  to  death. 
And  he  himself  had  gone  into  the  mills  when  he  was  ten  ! 
All  my  heart  seemed  bursting  with  desire  to  fold  my 
arms  around  him,  and  to  rest  his  head  on  my  breast  — 
his  head  that  must  be  weary  with  so  many  thoughts ; 
and  to  give  him  rest  —  just  rest  —  and  easement  and 
forgetfulness  for  a  tender  space. 

I  met  Colonel  Ingram  at  a  church  reception.  Him  I 
knew  well  and  had  known  well  for  many  years.  I 
trapped  him  behind  large  palms  and  rubber  plants, 
though  he  did  not  know  he  was  trapped.  He  met  me 
with  the  conventional  gayety  and  gallantry.     He  was 


, 


62  THE  IRON  HEEL 

ever  a  graceful  man,  diplomatic,  tactful,  and  con- 
siderate. And  as  for  appearance,  he  was  the  most 
distinguished-looking  man  in  our  society.  Beside 
him  even  the  venerable  head  of  the  university  looked 
tawdry  and  small. 

And  yet  I  found  Colonel  Ingram  situated  the  same  as 
the  unlettered  mechanics.  He  was  not  a  free  agent. 
He,  too,  was  bound  upon  the  wheel.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  change  in  him  when  I  mentioned  Jackson's  case. 
His  smiling  good-nature  vanished  like  a  ghost.  A 
sudden,  frightful  expression  distorted  his  well-bred 
face.  I  felt  the  same  alarm  that  I  had  felt  when 
James  Smith  broke  out.  But  Colonel  Ingram  did  not 
curse.  That  was  the  slight  difference  that  was  left 
between  the  workingman  and  him.  He  was  famed  as 
a  wit,  but  he  had  no  wit  now.  And,  unconsciously, 
this  way  and  that  he  glanced  for  avenues  of  escape. 
But  he  was  trapped  amid  the  palms  and  rubber 
trees. 

Oh,  he  was  sick  of  the  sound  of  Jackson's  name. 
Why  had  I  brought  the  matter  up  ?  He  did  not  relish 
my  joke.  It  was  poor  taste  on  my  part,  and  very 
inconsiderate.  Did  I  not  know  that  in  his  profession 
personal  feelings  did  not  count  ?  He  left  his  personal 
feelings  at  home  when  he  went  down  to  the  office.  At 
the  office  he  had  only  professional  feelings. 

" Should  Jackson  have  received  damages?"  I  asked. 

"Certainly,"  he  answered.     "That  is,  personally,  I 


SLAVES  OF  THE  MACHINE  63 

have  a  feeling  that  he  should.  But  that  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  legal  aspects  of  the  case." 

He  was  getting  his  scattered  wits  slightly  in  hand. 

"Tell  me,  has  right  anything  to  do  with  the  law?"  I 
asked. 

"You  have  used  the  wrong  initial  consonant,"  he 
smiled  in  answer. 

"Might?"  I  queried;  and  he  nodded  his  head. 
"And  yet  we  are  supposed  to  get  justice  by  means  of 
the  law?" 

"That  is  the  paradox  of  it,"  he  countered.  "We 
do  get  justice." 

"You  are  speaking  professionally  now,  are  you  not  ?  " 
I  asked. 

Colonel  Ingram  blushed,  actually  blushed,  and  again 
he  looked  anxiously  about  him  for  a  way  of  escape. 
But  I  blocked  his  path  and  did  not  offer  to  move. 

"Tell  me,"  I  said,  "when  one  surrenders  his  personal 
feelings  to  his  professional  feelings,  may  not  the  action 
be  denned  as  a  sort  of  spiritual  mayhem?" 

I  did  not  get  an  answer.  Colonel  Ingram  had  in- 
gloriously  bolted,  overturning  a  palm  in  his  flight. 

Next  I  tried  the  newspapers.  I  wrote  a  quiet,  re- 
strained, dispassionate  account  of  Jackson's  case.  I 
made  no  charges  against  the  men  with  whom  I  had 
talked,  nor,  for  that  matter,  did  I  even  mention  them. 
I  gave  the  actual  facts  of  the  case,  the  long  years  Jack- 
son had  worked  in  the  mills,  his  effort  to  save  the  ma- 


64  THE  IRON  HEEL 

chinery  from  damage  and  the  consequent  accident, 
and  his  own  present  wretched  and  starving  condition. 
The  three  local  newspapers  rejected  my  communication, 
likewise  did  the  two  weeklies. 

I  got  hold  of  Percy  Lay  ton.  He  was  a  graduate  of 
the  university,  had  gone  in  for  journalism,  and  was  then 
serving  his  apprenticeship  as  reporter  on  the  most  in- 
fluential of  the  three  newspapers.  He  smiled  when  I 
asked  him  the  reason  the  newspapers  suppressed  all 
mention  of  Jackson  or  his  case. 

"Editorial  policy,"  he  said.  "We  have  nothing  to 
do  with  that.     It's  up  to  the  editors." 

"But  why  is  it  policy?"  I  asked. 

"We're  all  solid  with  the  corporations,"  he  answered. 
"If  you  paid  advertising  rates,  you  couldn't  get  any 
such  matter  into  the  papers.  A  man  who  tried  to 
smuggle  it  in  would  lose  his  job.  You  couldn't  get 
it  in  if  you  paid  ten  times  the  regular  advertising 
rates." 

"How  about  your  own  policy?"  I  questioned.  "It 
would  seem  your  function  is  to  twist  truth  at  the  com- 
mand of  your  employers,  who,  in  turn,  obey  the  behests 
of  the  corporations." 

"I  haven't  anything  to  do  with  that."  He  looked 
uncomfortable  for  the  moment,  then  brightened  as  he 
saw  his  way  out.  "I,  myself,  do  not  write  untruthful 
things.  I  keep  square  all  right  with  my  own  conscience. 
Of  course,  there's  lots  that's  repugnant  in  the  course  of 


SLAVES  OF  THE  MACHINE  65 

the  day's  work.  But  then,  you  see,  that's  all  part  of 
the  day's  work,"  he  wound  up  boyishly. 

"  Yet  you  expect  to  sit  at  an  editor's  desk  some  day 
and  conduct  a  policy." 

"I'll  be  case-hardened  by  that  time,"  was  his  reply. 

"Since  you  are  not  yet  case-hardened,  tell  me  what 
you  think  right  now  about  the  general  editorial  policy." 

"I  don't  think,"  he  answered  quickly.  "One  can't 
kick  over  the  ropes  if  he's  going  to  succeed  in  journalism. 
I've  learned  that  much,  at  any  rate." 

And  he  nodded  his  young  head  sagely. 

"But  the  right?"  I  persisted. 

"You  don't  understand  the  game.  Of  course  it's 
all  right,  because  it  comes  out  all  right,  don't  you 
see  ?  " 

"Delightfully  vague,"  I  murmured;  but  my  heart 
was  aching  for  the  youth  of  him,  and  I  felt  that  I  must 
either  scream  or  burst  into  tears. 

I  was  beginning  to  see  through  the  appearances  of 
the  society  in  which  I  had  always  lived,  and  to  find  the 
frightful  realities  that  were  beneath.  There  seemed 
a  tacit  conspiracy  against  Jackson,  and  I  was  aware  of 
a  thrill  of  sympathy  for  the  whining  lawyer  who  had 
ingloriously  fought  his  case.  But  this  tacit  conspiracy 
grew  large.  Not  alone  was  it  aimed  against  Jackson. 
It  was  aimed  against  every  workingman  who  was 
maimed  in  the  mills.  And  if  against  every  man  in 
the  mills,  why  not  against  every  man  in  all  the  other 


66  THE  IRON  EEEL 

mills  and  factories?  In  fact,  was  it  not  true  of  all 
the  industries? 

And  if  this  was  so,  then  society  was  a  lie.  I  shrank 
back  from  my  own  conclusions.  It  was  too  terrible 
and  awful  to  be  true.  But  there  was  Jackson,  and 
Jackson's  arm,  and  the  blood  that  stained  my  gown 
and  dripped  from  my  own  roof-beams.  And  there  were 
many  Jacksons  —  hundreds  of  them  in  the  mills  alone, 
as  Jackson  himself  had  said.  Jackson  I  could  not  escape. 

I  saw  Mr.  Wickson  and  Mr.  Pertonwaithe,  the  two 
men  who  held  most  of  the  stock  in  the  Sierra  Mills.- 
But  I  could  not  shake  them  as  I  had  shaken  the  me- 
chanics in  their  employ.  I  discovered  that  they  had 
an  ethic  superior  to  that  of  the  rest  of  society.  It  was 
what  I  may  call  the  aristocratic  ethic  or  the  master 
ethic.1  They  talked  in  large  ways  of  polic}r,  and  they 
identified  policy  and  right.  And  to  me  they  talked 
in  fatherly  ways,  patronizing  my  youth  and  inex- 
perience. They  were  the  most  hopeless  of  all  I  had 
encountered  in  my  quest.  They  believed  absolutely 
that  their  conduct  was  right.  There  was  no  question 
about  it,  no  discussion.  They  were  convinced  that 
they  were  the  saviours  of  society,  and  that  it  was  they 
who  made  happiness  for  the  many.  And  they  drew 
pathetic  pictures  of  what  would  be  the  sufferings  of 

1  Before  Avis  Everhard  was  born,  John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  essay, 
On  Liberty,  wrote:  "Wherever  there  is  an  ascendant  class,  a  large 
portion  of  the  morality  emanates  from  its  class  interests  and  its  class- 
feelings  of  superiority." 


SLAVES  OF  THE  MACHINE  67 

the  working  class  were  it  not  for  the  employment  that 
they,  and  they  alone,  by  their  wisdom,  provided  for  it. 

Fresh  from  these  two  masters,  I  met  Ernest  and 
related  my  experience.  He  looked  at  me  with  a  pleased 
expression,  and  said : 

"Really,  this  is  fine.  You  are  beginning  to  dig  truth 
for  yourself.  It  is  your  own  empirical  generalization, 
and  it  is  correct.  No  man  in  the  industrial  machine  is 
a  free-will  agent,  except  the  large  capitalist,  and  he 
isn't,  if  you'll  pardon  the  Irishism.1  You  see,  the  mas- 
ters are  quite  sure  that  they  are  right  in  what  they  are 
doing.  That  is  the  crowning  absurdity  of  the  whole 
situation.  The}''  are  so  tied  by  their  human  nature 
that  they  can't  do  a  thing  unless  they  think  it  is  right. 
They  must  have  a  sanction  for  their  acts. 

"When  they  want  to  do  a  thing,  in  business  of  course, 
they  must  wait  till  there  arises  in  their  brains,  some- 
how, a  religious,  or  ethical,  or  scientific,  or  philosophic, 
concept  that  the  thing  is  right.  And  then  they  go 
ahead  and  do  it,  unwitting  that  one  of  the  weaknesses 
of  the  human  mind  is  that  the  wish  is  parent  to  the 
thought.  No  matter  what  they  want  to  do,  the  sanc- 
tion always  comes.  They  are  superficial  casuists. 
They  are  Jesuitical.  They  even  see  their  way  to  doing 
wrong  that  right  may  come  of  it.  One  of  the  pleasant 
and  axiomatic  fictions  they  have  created  is  that  they 

1  Verbal  contradictions,  called  bulls,  were  long  an  amiable  weakness 
of  the  ancient  Irish. 


68  THE  IRON  HEEL 

are  superior  to  the  rest  of  mankind  in  wisdom  and 
efficiency.  Therefrom  comes  their  sanction  to  manage 
the  bread  and  butter  of  the  rest  of  mankind.  They 
have  even  resurrected  the  theory  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings  —  commercial  kings  in  their  case.1 

"The  weakness  in  their  position  lies  in  that  they 
are  merely  business  men.  They  are  not  philosophers. 
They  are  not  biologists  nor  sociologists.  If  they  were, 
of  course  all  would  be  well.  A  business  man  who  was 
also  a  biologist  and  a  sociologist  would  know,  approxi- 
mately, the  right  thing  to  do  for  humanity.  But,  out- 
side the  realm  of  business,  these  men  are  stupid.  They 
know  only  business.  They  do  not  know  mankind  nor 
society,  and  yet  they  set  themselves  up  as  arbiters  of 
the  fates  of  the  hungry  millions  and  all  the  other  mill- 
ions thrown  in.  History,  some  day,  will  have  an 
excruciating  laugh  at  their  expense." 

I  was  not  surprised  when  I  had  my  talk  out  with 
Mrs.  Wickson  and  Mrs.  Pertonwaithe.  They  were 
society   women.2    Their   homes   were   palaces.     They 

1  The  newspapers,  in  1902  of  that  era,  credited  the  president  of  the 
Anthracite  Coal  Trust,  George  F.  Baer,  with  the  enunciation  of  the 
following  principle :  "  The  rights  and  interests  of  the  laboring  man  will 
be  protected  by  the  Christian  men  to  whom  God  in  His  infinite  wisdom 
has  given  the  property  interests  of  the  country." 

3  Society  is  here  used  in  a  restricted  sense,  a  common  usage  of  the 
times  to  denote  the  gilded  drones  that  did  no  labor,  but  only  glutted 
themselves  at  the  honey-vats  of  the  workers.  Neither  the  business 
men  nor  the  laborers  had  time  or  opportunity  for  society.  Society 
was  the  creation  of  the  idle  rich  who  toiled  not  and  who  in  this  way 
played. 


SLAVES  OF  THE  MACHINE  69 

had  many  homes  scattered  over  the  country,  in  the 
mountains,  on  lakes,  and  by  the  sea.  They  were 
tended  by  armies  of  servants,  and  their  social  activi- 
ties were  bewildering.  They  patronized  the  university 
and  the  churches,  and  the  pastors  especially  bowed 
at  their  knees  in  meek  subservience.1  They  were 
powers,  these  two  women,  what  of  the  money  that  was 
theirs.  The  power  of  subsidization  of  thought  was 
theirs  to  a  remarkable  degree,  as  I  was  soon  to  learn 
under  Ernest's  tuition. 

They  aped  their  husbands,  and  talked  in  the  same 
large  ways  about  policy,  and  the  duties  and  responsibili- 
ties -of  the  rich.  They  were  swayed  by  the  same  ethic 
that  dominated  their  husbands  —  the  ethic  of  their 
class ;  and  they  uttered  glib  phrases  that  their  own  ears 
did  not  understand. 

Also,  they  grew  irritated  when  I  told  them  of  the 
deplorable  condition  of  Jackson's  family,  and  when  I 
wondered  that  they  had  made  no  voluntary  provision 
for  the  man.  I  was  told  that  they  thanked  no  one  for 
instructing  them  in  their  social  duties.  When  I  asked 
them  flatly  to  assist  Jackson,  they  as  flatly  refused. 
The  astounding  thing  about  it  was  that  they  refused 
in  almost  identically  the  same  language,  and  this  in 
face  of  the  fact  that  I  interviewed  them  separately  and 
that  one  did  not  know  that  I  had  seen  or  was  going  to 

1  "  Bring  on  your  tainted  money,"  was  the  expressed  sentiment  of 
the  Church  during  this  period. 


70  THE  IRON  HEEL 

see  the  other.  Their  common  reply  was  that  they  were 
glad  of  the  opportunity  to  make  it  perfectly  plain  that 
no  premium  would  ever  be  put  on  carelessness  by  them ; 
nor  would  they,  by  paying  for  accident,  tempt  the  poor 
to  hurt  themselves  in  the  machinery.1 

And  they  were  sincere,  these  two  women.  They 
were  drunk  with  conviction  of  the  superiority  of  their 
class  and  of  themselves.  They  had  a  sanction,  in  their 
own  class-ethic,  for  every  act  they  performed.  As  I 
drove  away  from  Mrs.  Pertonwaithe's  great  house,  I 
looked  back  at  it,  and  I  remembered  Ernest's  expres- 
sion that  they  were  bound  to  the  machine,  but  that 
they  were  so  bound  that  they  sat  on  top  of  it. 

1  In  the  files  of  the  Outlook,  a  critical  weekly  of  the  period,  in  the 
number  dated  August  18,  1906,  is  related  the  circumstance  of  a  work- 
ingman  losing  his  arm,  the  details  of  which  are  quite  similar  to  those 
of  Jackson's  case  as  related  by  Avis  Everhard. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    PHILOMATHS 

Ernest  was  often  at  the  house.  Nor  was  it  my 
father,  merely,  nor  the  controversial  dinners,  that  drew 
him  there.  Even  at  that  time  I  flattered  myself  that 
I  played  some  part  in  causing  his  visits,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  I  learned  the  correctness  of  my  surmise. 
For  never  was  there  such  a  lover  as  Ernest  Everhard. 
His  gaze  and  his  hand-clasp  grew  firmer  and  steadier, 
if  that  were  possible ;  and  the  question  that  had  grown 
from  the  first  in  his  eyes,  grew  only  the  more  imperative. 

My  impression  of  him,  the  first  time  I  saw  him,  had 
been  unfavorable.  Then  I  had  found  myself  attracted 
toward  him.  Next  came  my  repulsion,  when  he  so 
savagely  attacked  my  class  and  me.  After  that,  as  I 
saw  that  he  had  not  maligned  my  class,  and  that  the 
harsh  and  bitter  things  he  said  about  it  were  justified, 
I  had  drawn  closer  to  him  again.  He  became  my 
oracle.  For  me  he  tore  the  sham  from  the  face  of 
society  and  gave  me  glimpses  of  reality  that  were  as 
unpleasant  as  they  were  undeniably  true. 

As  I  have  said,  there  was  never  such  a  lover  as  he. 
No  girl  could  live  in  a  university  town  till  she  was 
twenty-four  and  not  have  love  experiences.  I  had 
been  made  love  to  by  beardless  sophomores  and  gray 

71 


72  THE  IRON  HEEL 

professors,  and  by  the  athletes  and  the  football  giants. 
But  not  one  of  them  made  love  to  me  as  Ernest  did. 
His  arms  were  around  me  before  I  knew.  His  lips  were 
on  mine  before  I  could  protest  or  resist.  Before  his 
earnestness  conventional  maiden  dignity  was  ridiculous. 
He  swept  me  off  my  feet  by  the  splendid  invincible 
rush  of  him.  He  did  not  propose.  He  put  his  arms 
around  me  and  kissed  me  and  took  it  for  granted  that 
we  should  be  married.  There  was  no  discussion  about 
it.  The  only  discussion  —  and  that  arose  afterward  — 
was  when  we  should  be  married. 

It  was  unprecedented.  It  was  unreal.  Yet,  in 
accordance  with  Ernest's  test  of  truth,  it  worked.  I 
trusted  my  life  to  it.  And  fortunate  was  the  trust. 
Yet  during  those  first  days  of  our  love,  fear  of  the 
future  came  often  to  me  when  I  thought  of  the  violence 
and  impetuosity  of  his  love-making.  Yet  such  fears 
were  groundless.  No  woman  was  ever  blessed  with  a 
gentler,  tenderer  husband.  This  gentleness  and  vio- 
lence on  his  part  was  a  curious  blend  similar  to  the  one 
in  his  carriage  of  awkwardness  and  ease.  That  slight 
awkwardness !  He  never  got  over  it,  and  it  was  de- 
licious. His  behavior  in  our  drawing-room  reminded 
me  of  a  careful  bull  in  a  china  shop.1 

1  In  those  days  it  was  still  the  custom  to  fill  the  living  rooms  with 
bric-a-brac.  They  had  not  discovered  simplicity  of  living.  Such 
rooms  were  museums,  entailing  endless  labor  to  keep  clean.  The 
dust-demon  was  the  lord  of  the  household.  There  were  a  myriad  de- 
vices for  catching  dust,  and  only  a  few  devices  for  getting  rid  of  it. 


THE  PHILOMATHS  73 

It  was  at  this  time  that  vanished  my  last  doubt  of 
the  completeness  of  my  love  for  him  (a  subconscious 
doubt,  at  most).  It  was  at  the  Philomath  Club  —  a 
wonderful  night  of  battle,  wherein  Ernest  bearded  the 
masters  in  their  lair.  Now  the  Philomath  Club  was 
the  most  select  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  It  was  the  crea- 
tion of  Miss  Brentwood,  an  enormously  wealthy  old 
maid ;  and  it  was  her  husband,  and  family,  and  toy. 
Its  members  were  the  wealthiest  in  the  community, 
and  the  strongest-minded  of  the  wealthy,  with,  of 
course,  a  sprinkling  of  scholars  to  give  it  intellectual 
tone. 

The  Philomath  had  no  club  house.  It  was  not  that 
kind  of  a  club.  Once  a  month  its  members  gathered 
at  some  one  of  their  private  houses  to  listen  to  a  lecture. 
The  lecturers  were  usually,  though  not  always,  hired. 
If  a  chemist  in  New  York  made  a  new  discovery  in  say 
radium,  all  his  expenses  across  the  continent  were  paid, 
and  as  well  he  received  a  princely  fee  for  his  time. 
The  same  with  a  returning  explorer  from  the  polar 
regions,  or  the  latest  literary  or  artistic  success.  No 
visitors  were  allowed,  while  it  was  the  Philomath's 
policy  to  permit  none  of  its  discussions  to  get  into  the 
papers.  Thus  great  statesmen  —  and  there  had  been 
such  occasions  —  were  able  fully  to  speak  their  minds. 

I  spread  before  me  a  wrinkled  letter,  written  to  me 
by  Ernest  twenty  years  ago,  and  from  it  I  copy  the 
following : 


74  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"Your  father  is  a  member  of  the  Philomath,  so  you 
are  able  to  come.  Therefore  come  next  Tuesday  night. 
I  promise  you  that  you  will  have  the  time  of  your  life. 
In  your  recent  encounters,  you  failed  to  shake  the 
masters.  If  you  come,  I'll  shake  them  for  you.  I'll 
make  them  snarl  like  wolves.  You  merely  questioned 
their  morality.  When  their  morality  is  questioned, 
they  grow  only  the  more  complacent  and  superior. 
But  I  shall  menace  their  money-bags.  That  will 
shake  them  to  the  roots  of  their  primitive  natures. 
If  you  can  come,  you  will  see  the  cave-man,  in  evening 
dress,  snarling  and  snapping  over  a  bone.  I  promise 
you  a  great  caterwauling  and  an  illuminating  insight 
into  the  nature  of  the  beast. 

"They've  invited  me  in  order  to  tear  me  to  pieces. 
This  is  the  idea  of  Miss  Brentwood.  She  clumsily 
hinted  as  much  when  she  invited  me.  She's  given  them 
that  kind  of  fun  before.  They  delight  in  getting  trust- 
ful-souled  gentle  reformers  before  them.  Miss  Brent- 
wood thinks  I  am  as  mild  as  a  kitten  and  as  good- 
natured  and  stolid  as  the  family  cow.  I'll  not  deny  that 
I  helped  to  give  her  that  impression.  She  was  very 
tentative  at  first,  until  she  divined  my  harmlessness. 
I  am  to  receive  a  handsome  fee  —  two  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars  —  as  befits  the  man  who,  though  a  radical, 
once  ran  for  governor.  Also,  I  am  to  wear  evening 
dress.  This  is  compulsory.  I  never  was  so  apparelled 
in  my  life.     I  suppose  I'll  have  to  hire  one  somewhere. 


THE  PHILOMATHS  75 

But   I'd   do  more  than  that  to  get  a  chance  at  the 
Philomaths." 

Of  all  places,  the  Club  gathered  that  night  at  the 
Pertonwaithe  house.  Extra  chairs  had  been  brought 
into  the  great  drawing-room,  and  in  all  there  must  have 
been  two  hundred  Philomaths  that  sat  down  to  hear 
Ernest.  They  were  truly  lords  of  society.  I  amused 
myself  with  running  over  in  my  mind  the  sum  of  the 
fortunes  represented,  and  it  ran  well  into  the  hundreds 
of  millions.  And  the  possessors  were  not  of  the  idle 
rich.  They  were  men  of  affairs  who  took  most  active 
parts  in  industrial  and  political  life. 

We  were  all  seated  when  Miss  Brentwood  brought 
Ernest  in.  They  moved  at  once  to  the  head  of  the 
room,  from  where  he  was  to  speak.  He  was  in  evening 
dress,  and,  what  of  his  broad  shoulders  and  kingly  head, 
he  looked  magnificent.  And  then  there  was  that  faint 
and  unmistakable  touch  of  awkwardness  in  his  move 
ments.  I  almost  think  I  could  have  loved  him  for 
that  alone.  And  as  I  looked  at  him  I  was  aware  of  a 
great  joy.  I  felt  again  the  pulse  of  his  palm  on  mine, 
the  touch  of  his  lips;  and  such  pride  was  mine  that 
I  felt  I  must  rise  up  and  cry  out  to  the  assembled 
company:  "He  is  mine!  He  has  held  me  in  his 
arms,  and  I,  mere  I,  have  rilled  that  mind  of  his  to 
the  exclusion  of  all  his  multitudinous,  and  kingly 
thoughts!" 

At  the  head  of  the  room,  Miss  Brentwood  introduced 


76  THE  IRON  HEEL 

him  to  Colonel  Van  Gilbert,  and  I  knew  that  the  latter 
was  to  preside.  Colonel  Van  Gilbert  was  a  great  cor- 
poration lawyer.  In  addition,  he  was  immensely 
wealthy.  The  smallest  fee  he  would  deign  to  notice 
was  a  hundred  thousand  dollars.  He  was  a  master  of 
law.  The  law  was  a  puppet  with  which  he  played. 
He  moulded  it  like  clay,  twisted  and  distorted  it  like 
a  Chinese  puzzle  into  any  design  he  chose.  In  appear- 
ance and  rhetoric  he  was  old-fashioned,  but  in  imagina- 
tion and  knowledge  and  resource  he  was  as  young  as 
the  latest  statute.  His  first  prominence  had  come 
when  he  broke  the  Shardwell  will.1  His  fee  for  this 
one  act  was  five  hundred  thousand  dollars.  From 
then  on  he  had  risen  like  a  rocket.  He  was  often 
called  the  greatest  lawyer  in  the  country  —  corporation 
lawyer,  of  course;  and  no  classification  of  the  three 
greatest  lawyers  in  the  United  States  could  have  ex- 
cluded him. 

He  arose  and  began,  in  a  few  well-chosen  phrases  that 

1  This  breaking  of  wills  was  a  peculiar  feature  of  the  period.  With 
the  accumulation  of  vast  fortunes,  the  problem  of  disposing  of  these 
fortunes  after  death  was  a  vexing  one  to  the  accumulators.  Will- 
making  and  will-breaking  became  complementary  trades,  like  armor- 
making  and  gun-making.  The  shrewdest  will-making  lawyers  were 
called  in  to  make  wills  that  could  not  be  broken.  But  these  wills 
were  always  broken,  and  very  often  by  the  very  lawyers  that  had 
drawn  them  up.  Nevertheless  the  delusion  persisted  in  the  wealthy 
class  that  an  absolutely  unbreakable  will  could  be  cast;  and  so, 
through  the  generations,  clients  and  lawyers  pursued  the  illusion. 
It  was  a  pursuit  like  unto  that  of  the  Universal  Solvent  of  the  mediaeval 
alchemists. 


THE  PHILOMATHS  77 

carried  an  undertone  of  faint  irony,  to  introduce 
Ernest.  Colonel  Van  Gilbert  was  subtly  facetious  in 
his  introduction  of  the  social  reformer  and  member  of 
the  working  class,  and  the  audience  smiled.  It  made 
me  angry,  and  I  glanced  at  Ernest.  The  sight  of  him 
made  me  doubly  angry.  He  did  not  seem  to  resent 
the  delicate  slurs.  Worse  than  that,  he  did  not  seem 
to  be  aware  of  them.  There  he  sat,  gentle,  and  stolid, 
and  somnolent.  He  really  looked  stupid.  And  for  a 
moment  the  thought  rose  in  my  mind,  What  if  he  were 
overawed  by  this  imposing  array  of  power  and  brains? 
Then  I  smiled.  He  couldn't  fool  me.  But  he  fooled 
the  others,  just  as  he  had  fooled  Miss  Brentwood. 
She  occupied  a  chair  right  up  to  the  front,  and  several 
times  she  turned  her  head  toward  one  or  another  of 
her  confreres  and  smiled  her  appreciation  of  the  re- 
marks. 

Colonel  Van  Gilbert  done,  Ernest  arose  and  began 
to  speak.  He  began  in  a  low  voice,  haltingly  and 
modestly,  and  with  an  air  of  evident  embarrassment. 
He  spoke  of  his  birth  in  the  working  class,  and  of  the 
sordidness  and  wretchedness  of  his  environment,  where 
flesh  and  spirit  were  alike  starved  and  tormented.  He 
described  his  ambitions  and  ideals,  and  his  conception 
of  the  paradise  wherein  lived  the  people  of  the  upper 
classes.     As  he  said  : 

"Up  above  me,  I  knew,  were  unselfishnesses  of  the 
spirit,  clean  and  noble  thinking,  keen  intellectual  living. 


78  THE  IRON  HEEL 

I  knew  all  this  because  I  read  '  Seaside  Library ' J 
novels,  in  which,  with  the  exception  of  the  villains  and 
adventuresses,  all  men  and  women  thought  beautiful 
thoughts,  spoke  a  beautiful  tongue,  and  performed  glo- 
rious deeds.  In  short,  as  I  accepted  the  rising  of  the 
sun,  I  accepted  that  up  above  me  was  all  that  was  fine 
and  noble  and  gracious,  all  that  gave  decency  and  dig- 
nity to  life,  all  that  made  life  worth  living  and  that 
remunerated  one  for  his  travail  and  misery." 

He  went  on  and  traced  his  life  in  the  mills,  the 
learning  of  the  horseshoeing  trade,  and  his  meeting 
with  the  socialists.  Among  them,  he  said,  he  had 
found  keen  intellects  and  brilliant  wits,  ministers  of 
the  Gospel  who  had  been  broken  because  their  Chris- 
tianity was  too  wide  for  any  congregation  of  mammon- 
worshippers,  and  professors  who  had  been  broken  on 
the  wheel  of  university  subservience  to  the  ruling  class. 
The  socialists  were  revolutionists,  he  said,  struggling 
to  overthrow  the  irrational  society  of  the  present  and 
out  of  the  material  to  build  the  rational  society  of  the 
future.  Much  more  he  said  that  would  take  too  long 
to  write,  but  I  shall  never  forget  how  he  described  the 
life  among  the  revolutionists.  All  halting  utterance 
vanished.  His  voice  grew  strong  and  confident,  and 
it  glowed  as  he  glowed,  and  as  the  thoughts  glowed  that 
poured  out  from  him.     He  said : 

1  A  curious  and  amazing  literature  that  served  to  make  the  working 
class  utterly  misapprehend  the  nature  of  the  leisure  class. 


THE  PHILOMATHS  79 

"  Amongst  the  revolutionists  I  found,  also,  warm 
faith  in  the  human,  ardent  idealism,  sweetnesses  of 
unselfishness;  renunciation,  and  martyrdom  —  all  the 
splendid,  stinging  things  of  the  spirit.  Here  life  was 
clean,  noble,  and  alive.  I  was  in  touch  with  great 
souls  who  exalted  flesh  and  spirit  over  dollars  and  cents, 
and  to  whom  the  thin  wail  of  the  starved  slum  child 
meant  more  than  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of 
commercial  expansion  and  world  empire.  All  about 
me  were  nobleness  of  purpose  and  heroism  of  effort, 
and  my  days  and  nights  were  sunshine  and  starshine, 
all  fire  and  dew,  with  before  my  eyes,  ever  burning  and 
blazing,  the  Holy  Grail,  Christ's  own  Grail,  the  warm 
human,  long-suffering  and  maltreated  but  to  be  rescued 
and  saved  at  the  last." 

As  before  I  had  seen  him  transfigured,  so  now  he 
stood  transfigured  before  me.  His  brows  were  bright 
with  the  divine  that  was  in  him,  and  brighter  yet  shone 
his  eyes  from  the  midst  of  the  radiance  that  seemed 
to  envelop  him  as  a  mantle.  But  the  others  did  not 
see  this  radiance,  and  I  assumed  that  it  was  due  to  the 
tears  of  joy  and  love  that  dimmed  my  vision.  At  any 
rate,  Mr.  Wickson,  who  sat  behind  me,  was  unaffected, 
for  I  heard  him  sneer  aloud,  "Utopian."  * 

1  The  people  of  that  age  were  phrase  slaves.  The  abjectness  of 
their  servitude  is  incomprehensible  to  us.  There  was  a  magic  in 
words  greater  than  the  conjurer's  art.  So  befuddled  and  chaotic 
were  their  minds  that  the  utterance  of  a  single  word  could  negative 
the  generalizations  of  a  lifetime  of  serious  research  and  thought.     Such 


80  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Ernest  went  on  to  his  rise  in  society,  till  at  last  he 
came  in  touch  with  members  of  the  upper  classes,  and 
rubbed  shoulders  with  the  men  who  sal?  in  the  high 
places.  Then  came  his  disillusionment,  and  this  dis- 
illusionment he  described  in  terms  that  did  not  flatter 
his  audience.  He  was  surprised  at  the  commonness 
of  the  clay.  Life  proved  not  to  be  fine  and  gracious. 
He  was  appalled  by  the  selfishness  he  encountered, 
and  what  had  surprised  him  even  more  than  that  was 
the  absence  of  intellectual  life.  Fresh  from  his  revo- 
lutionists, he  was  shocked  by  the  intellectual  stupidity 
of  the  master  class.  And  then,  in  spite  of  their  magnifi- 
cent churches  and  well-paid  preachers,  he  had  found 
the  masters,  men  and  women,  grossly  material.  It  was 
true  that  they  prattled  sweet  little  ideals  and  dear  little 
moralities,  but  in  spite  of  their  prattle  the  dominant 
key  of  the  life  they  lived  was  materialistic.  And  they 
were  without  real  morality  —  for  instance,  that  which 
Christ  had  preached  but  which  was  no  longer  preached. 

"I  met  men,"  he  said,  "who  invoked  the  name  of 
the  Prince  of  Peace  in  their  diatribes  against  war,  and 
who  put  rifles  in  the  hands  of  Pinkertons  l  with  which 

a  word  was  the  adjective  Utopian.  The  mere  utterance  of  it  could 
damn  any  scheme,  no  matter  how  sanely  conceived,  of  economic 
amelioration  or  regeneration.  Vast  populations  grew  frenzied  over 
such  phrases  as  "an  honest  dollar"  and  "a  full  dinner  pail."  The 
coinage  of  such  phrases  was  considered  strokes  of  genius. 

1  Originally,  they  were  private  detectives;  but  they  quickly  be- 
came hired  fighting  men  of  the  capitalists,  and  ultimately  developed 
into  the  Mercenaries  of  the  Oligarchy. 


THE  PHILOMATHS  81 

to  shoot  down  strikers  in  their  own  factories.  I  met 
men  incoherent  with  indignation  at  the  brutality  of 
prize-fighting,  and  who,  at  the  same  time,  were  parties 
to  the  adulteration  of  food  that  killed  each  year  more 
babes  than  even  red-handed  Herod  had  killed. 

''This  delicate,  aristocratic-featured  gentleman  was 
a  dummy  director  and  a  tool  of  corporations  that  se- 
cretly robbed  widows  and  orphans.  This  gentleman, 
who  collected  fine  editions  and  was  a  patron  of  litera- 
ture, paid  blackmail  to  a  heavy-jowled,  black-browed 
boss  of  a  municipal  machine.  This  editor,  who  pub- 
lished patent  medicine  advertisements,  called  me  a 
scoundrelly  demagogue  because  I  dared  him  to  print 
in  his  paper  the  truth  about  patent  medicines.1  This 
man,  talking  soberly  and  earnestly  about  the  beauties 
of  idealism  and  the  goodness  of  God,  had  just  betrayed 
his  comrades  in  a  business  deal.  This  man,  a  pillar  of 
the  church  and  heavy  contributor  to  foreign  missions, 
worked  his  shop  girls  ten  hours  a  day  on  a  starvation 
wage  and  thereby  directly  encouraged  prostitution. 
This  man,  who  endowed  chairs  in  universities  and 
erected  magnificent  chapels,  perjured  himself  in  courts 
of  law  over  dollars  and  cents.  This  railroad  magnate 
broke  his  word  as  a  citizen,  as  a  gentleman,  and  as  a 
Christian,  when  he  granted    a   secret  rebate,   and    he 

1  Patent  medicines  were  patent  lies,  but,  like  the  charms  and  indul- 
gences of  the  Middle  Ages,  they  deceived  the  people.  The  only  differ- 
ence lay  in  that  the  patent  medicines  were  mora  harmful  and  more 
costly. 


82  THE  IRON  HEEL 

granted  many  secret  rebates.  This  senator  was 
the  tool  and  the  slave,  the  little  puppet,  of  a  brutal 
uneducated  machine  boss ; x  so  was  this  governor  and 
this  supreme  court  judge;  and  all  three  rode  on  rail- 
road passes ;  and,  also,  this  sleek  capitalist  owned  the 
machine,  the  machine  boss,  and  the  railroads  that 
issued  the  passes. 

"And  so  it  was,  instead  of  in  paradise,  that  I  found 
myself  in  the  arid  desert  of  commercialism.  I  found 
nothing  but  stupidity,  except  for  business.  I  found 
none  clean,  noble,  and  alive,  though  I  found  many  who 
were  alive  —  with  rottenness.  What  I  did  find  was 
monstrous  selfishness  and  heartlessness,  and  a  gross, 
gluttonous,  practised,  and  practical  materialism." 

Much  more  Ernest  told  them  of  themselves  and  of 
his  disillusionment.  Intellectually  they  had  bored 
him ;  morally  and  spiritually  they  had  sickened  him ; 
so  that  he  was  glad  to  go  back  to  his  revolutionists, 
who  were  clean,  noble,  and  alive,  and  all  that  the  capital- 
ists were  not. 

"And  now,"  he  said,  "let  me  tell  you  about  that 
revolution." 

But  first  I  must  say  that  his  terrible  diatribe  had 

1  Even  as  late  as  1912,  a.d.,  the  great  mass  of  the  people  still  per- 
sisted in  the  belief  that  they  ruled  the  country  by  virtue  of  their  bal- 
lots. In  reality,  the  country  was  ruled  by  what  were  called  political 
machines.  At  first  the  machine  bosses  charged  the  master  capitalists 
extortionate  tolls  for  legislation ;  but  in  a  short  time  the  master  capi- 
talists found  it  cheaper  to  own  the  political  machines  themselves  and 
to  hire  the  machine  bosses. 


THE  PHILOMATHS  83 

not  touched  them.  I  looked  about  me  at  their  faces 
and  saw  that  they  remained  complacently  superior  to 
what  he  had  charged.  And  I  remembered  what  he 
had  told  me:  that  no  indictment  of  their  morality 
could  shake  them.  However,  I  could  see  that  the 
boldness  of  his  language  had  affected  Miss  Brentwood. 
She  was  looking  worried  and  apprehensive. 

Ernest  began  by  describing  the  army  of  revolution, 
and  as  he  gave  the  figures  of  its  strength  (the  votes  cast 
in  the  various  countries),  the  assemblage  began  to 
grow  restless.  Concern  showed  in  their  faces,  and  I 
noticed  a  tightening  of  lips.  At  last  the  gage  of 
battle  had  been  thrown  down.  He  described  the 
international  organization  of  the  socialists  that  united 
the  million  and  a  half  in  the  United  States  with  the 
twenty-three  millions  and  a  half  in  the  rest  of  the 
world. 

"Such  an  army  of  revolution/'  he  said,  "twenty-five 
millions  strong,  is  a  thing  to  make  rulers  and  ruling 
classes  pause  and  consider.  The  cry  of  this  army  is : 
'No  quarter !  We  want  all  that  you  possess.  We  will 
be  content  with  nothing  less  than  all  that  you  possess. 
We  want  in  our  hands  the  reins  of  power  and  the 
destiny  of  mankind.  Here  are  our  hands.  They  are 
strong  hands.  We  are  going  to  take  your  governments, 
your  palaces,  and  all  your  purpled  ease  away  from  you, 
and  in  that  day  you  shall  work  for  your  bread  even  as 
the  peasant  in  the  field  or  the  starved  and  runty  clerk 


Vtt«»»*» 


84  THE  IRON  HEEL 

in  your  metropolises.  Here  are  our  hands.  They  are 
strong  hands! '" 

And  as  he  spoke  he  extended  from  his  splendid  shoul- 
ders his  two  great  arms,  and  the  horseshoer's  hands  were 
clutching  the  air  like  eagle's  talons.  He  was  the  spirit 
of  regnant  labor  as  he  stood  there,  his  hands  outreach- 
ing  to  rend  and  crush  his  audience.  I  was  aware  of  a 
faintly  perceptible  shrinking  on  the  part  of  the  listeners 
before  this  figure  of  revolution,  concrete,  potential,  and 
menacing.  That  is,  the  women  shrank,  and  fear  was 
in  their  faces.  Not  so  with  the  men.  They  were  of 
the  active  rich,  and  not  the  idle,  and  they  were  fighters. 
A  low,  throaty  rumble  arose,  lingered  on  the  air  a 
moment,  and  ceased.  It  was  the  forerunner  of  the 
snarl,  and  I  was  to  hear  it  many  times  that  night  — 
the  token  of  the  brute  in  man,  the  earnest  of  his  primi- 
tive passions.  And  they  were  unconscious  that  they 
had  made  this  sound.  It  was  the  growl  of  the  pack, 
mouthed  by  the  pack,  and  mouthed  in  all  unconscious- 
ness. And  in  that  moment,  as  I  saw  the  harshness  form 
in  their  faces  and  saw  the  fight-light  flashing  in  their 
eyes,  I  realized  that  not  easily  would  they  let  their 
lordship  of  the  world  be  wrested  from  them. 

Ernest  proceeded  with  his  attack.  He  accounted 
for  the  existence  of  the  million  and  a  half  of  revolu- 
tionists in  the  United  States  by  charging  the  capitalist 
class  with  having  mismanaged  society.  He  sketched 
the  economic  condition  of  the  cave-man  and  of  the 


THE  PHILOMATHS  85 

savage  peoples  of  to-day,  pointing  out  that  they  pos- 
sessed neither  tools  nor  machines,  and  possessed  only 
a  natural  efficiency  of  one  in  producing  power.  Then 
he  traced  the  development  of  machinery  and  social 
organization  so  that  to-day  the  producing  power  of 
civilized  man  was  a  thousand  times  greater  than  that 
of  the  savage. 

"Five  men,"  he  said,  "can  produce  bread  for  a 
thousand.  One  man  can  produce  cotton  cloth  for  two 
hundred  and  fifty  people,  woollens  for  three  hundred, 
and  boots  and  shoes  for  a  thousand.  One  would  con- 
clude from  this  that  under  a  capable  management  of 
society  modern  civilized  man  would  be  a  great  deal 
better  off  than  the  cave-man.  But  is  he?  Let  us  see. 
In  the  United  States  to-day  there  are  fifteen  million  * 
people  living  in  poverty ;  and  by  poverty  is  meant  that 
condition  in  life  in  which,  through  lack  of  food  and 
adequate  shelter,  the  mere  standard  of  working  effi- 
ciency cannot  be  maintained.  In  the  United  States 
to-day,  in  spite  of  all  your  so-called  labor  legislation, 
there  are  three  millions  of  child  laborers.2  In  twelve 
years  their  numbers  have  been  doubled.  And  in  pass- 
ing I  will  ask  you  managers  of  society  why  you  did 


1  Robert  Hunter,  in  1906,  in  a  book  entitled  "  Poverty,"  pointed 
out  that  at  that  time  there  were  ten  millions  in  the  United  States  liv- 
ing in  poverty. 

2  In  the  United  States  Census  of  1900  (the  last  census  the  figures 
of  which  were  made  public),  the  number  of  child  laborers  was  placed 
at  1,752,187. 


86  THE  IRON  HEEL 

not  make  public  the  census  figures  of  1910?  And  I 
will  answer  for  you,  that  you  were  afraid.  The  figures 
of  misery  would  have  precipitated  the  revolution  that 
even  now  is  gathering. 

"But  to  return  to  my  indictment.  If  modern 
man's  producing  power  is  a  thousand  times  greater 
than  that  of  the  cave-man,  why  then,  in  the  United 
States  to-day,  are  there  fifteen  million  people  who  are 
not  properly  sheltered  and  properly  fed?  Why  then, 
in  the  United  States  to-da}r,  are  there  three  million 
child  laborers?  It  is  a  true  indictment.  The  capital- 
ist class  has  mismanaged.  In  face  of  the  facts  that 
modern  man  lives  more  wretchedly  than  the  cave-man, 
and  that  his  producing  power  is  a  thousand  times 
greater  than  that  of  the  cave-man,  no  other  conclu- 
sion is  possible  than  that  the  capitalist  class  has  mis- 
managed, that  you  have  mismanaged,  my  masters, 
that  you  have  criminally  and  selfishly  mismanaged. 
And  on  this  count  you  cannot  answer  me  here  to-night, 
face  to  face,  any  more  than  can  your  whole  class 
answer  the  million  and  a  half  of  revolutionists  in  the 
United  States.  You  cannot  answer.  I  challenge 
you  to  answer.  And  furthermore,  I  dare  to  say  to  you 
now  that  when  I  have  finished  you  will  not  answer. 
On  that  point  you  will  be  tongue-tied,  though  you  will 
talk  wordily  enough  about  other  things. 

"You  have  failed  in  your  management.  You  have 
made  a  shambles  of  civilization.     You  have  been  blind 


THE   PHILOMATHS  87 

and  greedy.  You  have  risen  up  (as  you  to-day  rise 
up),  shamelessly,  in  our  legislative  halls,  and  declared 
that  profits  were  impossible  without  the  toil  of  children 
and  babes.  Don't  take  my  word  for  it.  It  is  all  in  the 
records  against  you.  You  have  lulled  your  conscience 
to  sleep  with  prattle  of  sweet  ideals  and  dear  moralities. 
You  are  fat  with  power  and  possession,  drunken  with 
success;  and  you  have  no  more  hope  against  us  than 
have  the  drones,  clustered  about  the  honey-vats,  when 
the  worker-bees  spring  upon  them  to  end  their  rotund 
existence.  You  have  failed  in  your  management  of 
society,  and  your  management  is  to  be  taken  away 
from  you.  A  million  and  a  half  of  the  men  of  the  work- 
ing class  say  that  they  are  going  to  get  the  rest  of  the 
working  class  to  join  with  them  and  take  the  manage- 
ment away  from  you.  This  is  the  revolution,  my  mas- 
ters.    Stop  it  if  you  can." 

For  an  appreciable  lapse  of  time  Ernest's  voice 
continued  to  ring  through  the  great  room.  Then  arose 
the  throaty  rumble  I  had  heard  before,  and  a  dozen 
men  were  on  their  feet  clamoring  for  recognition  from 
Colonel  Van  Gilbert.  I  noticed  Miss  Brentwood's 
shoulders  moving  convulsively,  and  for  the  moment 
I  was  angry,  for  I  thought  that  she  was  laughing  at 
Ernest.  And  then  I  discovered  that  it  was  not  laugh- 
ter, but  hysteria.  She  was  appalled  by  what  she  had 
done  in  bringing  this  firebrand  before  her  blessed  Philo- 
math Club. 


88  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Colonel  Van  Gilbert  did  not  notice  the  dozen  men, 
with  passion-wrought  faces,  who  strove  to  get  per- 
mission from  him  to  speak.  His  own  face  was  passion- 
wrought.  He  sprang  to  his  feet,  waving  his  arms,  and 
for  a  moment  could  utter  only  incoherent  sounds.  Then 
speech  poured  from  him.  But  it  was  not  the  speech  of 
a  one-hundred-thousand-dollar  lawyer,  nor  was  the 
rhetoric  old-fashioned. 

"Fallacy  upon  fallacy!"  he  cried.  "Never  in  all 
my  life  have  I  heard  so  many  fallacies  uttered  in  one 
short  hour.  And  besides,  young  man,  I  must  tell  you 
that  you  have  said  nothing  new.  I  learned  all  that  at 
college  before  you  were  born.  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau 
enunciated  your  socialistic  theory  nearly  two  centuries 
ago.  A  return  to  the  soil,  forsooth  !  Reversion  !  Our 
biology  teaches  the  absurdity  of  it.  It  has  been  truly 
said  that  a  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing,  and  you 
have  exemplified  it  to-night  with  your  madcap  theories. 
Fallacy  upon  fallacy  !  I  was  never  so  nauseated  in  my 
life  with  overplus  of  fallacy.  That  for  your  immature 
generalizations  and  childish  reasonings!" 

He  snapped  his  fingers  contemptuously  and  proceeded 
to  sit  down.  There  were  lip-exclamations  of  approval 
on  the  part  of  the  women,  and  hoarser  notes  of  con- 
firmation came  from  the  men.  As  for  the  dozen  men 
who  were  clamoring  for  the  floor,  half  of  them  began 
speaking  at  once.  The  confusion  and  babel  was  in- 
describable.    Never  had  Mrs.  Pertonwaithe's  spacious 


THE  PHILOMATHS  89 

walls  beheld  such  a  spectacle.  These,  then,  were  the 
cool  captains  of  industry  and  lords  of  society,  these 
snarling,  growling  savages  in  evening  clothes.  Truly 
Ernest  had  shaken  them  when  he  stretched  out  his 
hands  for  their  money-bags,  his  hands  that  had  ap- 
peared in  their  eyes  as  the  hands  of  the  fifteen  hundred 
thousand  revolutionists. 

But  Ernest  never  lost  his  head  in  a  situation.  Before 
Colonel  Van  Gilbert  had  succeeded  in  sitting  down, 
Ernest  was  on  his  feet  and  had  sprung  forward. 

"One  at  a  time!"  he  roared  at  them. 

The  sound  arose  from  his  great  lungs  and  dominated 
the  human  tempest.  By  sheer  compulsion  of  personal- 
ity he  commanded  silence. 

"One  at  a  time/'  he  repeated  softly.  "Let  me  an- 
swer Colonel  Van  Gilbert.  After  that  the  rest  of  you 
can  come  at  me  —  but  one  at  a  time,  remember.  No 
mass-plays  here.     This  is  not  a  football  field. 

"As  for  you,"  he  went  on,  turning  toward  Colonel 
Van  Gilbert,  "you  have  replied  to  nothing  I  have  said. 
You  have  merely  made  a  few  excited  and  dogmatic 
assertions  about  my  mental  caliber.  That  may  serve 
you  in  your  business,  but  you  can't  talk  to  me  like 
that.  I  am  not  a  workingman,  cap  in  hand,  asking 
you  to  increase  my  wages  or  to  protect  me  from  the 
machine  at  which  I  work.  You  cannot  be  dogmatic 
with  truth  when  you  deal  with  me.  Save  that  for 
dealing  with  your  wage-slaves.     They  will  not  dare 


90  THE  IRON  HEEL 

reply  to  you  because  you  hold  their  bread  and  butter, 
their  lives,  in  your  hands. 

"As  for  this  return  to  nature  that  you  say  you 
learned  at  college  before  I  was  born,  permit  me  to 
point  out  that  on  the  face  of  it  you  cannot  have  learned 
anything  since.  Socialism  has  no  more  to  do  with  the 
state  of  nature  than  has  differential  calculus  with  a 
Bible  class.  I  have  called  your  class  stupid  when  out- 
side the  realm  of  business.  You,  sir,  have  brilliantly 
exemplified  my  statement." 

This  terrible  castigation  of  her  hundred-thousand- 
dollar  lawyer  was  too  much  for  Miss  Brentwood's 
nerves.  Her  hysteria  became  violent,  and  she  was 
helped,  weeping  and  laughing,  out  of  the  room.  It  was 
just  as  well,  for  there  was  worse  to  follow. 

" Don't  take  my  word  for  it,"  Ernest  continued, 
when  the  interruption  had  been  led  away.  "Your 
own  authorities  with  one  unanimous  voice  will  prove 
you  stupid.  Your  own  hired  purveyors  of  knowledge 
will  tell  you  that  you  are  wrong.  Go  to  your  meekest 
little  assistant  instructor  of  sociology  and  ask  him 
what  is  the  difference  between  Rousseau's  theory  of 
the  return  to  nature  and  the  theory  of  socialism ;  ask 
your  greatest  orthodox  bourgeois  political  economists 
and  sociologists ;  question  through  the  pages  of  every 
text-book  written  on  the  subject  and  stored  on  the 
shelves  of  your  subsidized  libraries ;  and  from  one  and 
all  the  answer  will  be  that  there  is  nothing  congruous 


THE  PHILOMATHS  91 

between  the  return  to  nature  and  socialism.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  unanimous  affirmative  answer  will  be 
that  the  return  to  nature  and  socialism  are  diametri- 
cally opposed  to  each  other.  As  I  say,  don't  take  my 
word  for  it.  The  record  of  your  stupidity  is  there  in 
the  books,  your  own  books  that  you  never  read.  And 
so  far  as  your  stupidity  is  concerned,  you  are  but  the 
exemplar  of  your  class. 

"You  know  law  and  business,  Colonel  Van  Gilbert. 
You  know  how  to  serve  corporations  and  increase 
dividends  by  twisting  the  law.  Very  good.  Stick  to 
it.  You  are  quite  a  figure.  You  are  a  very  good 
lawyer,  but  you  are  a  poor  historian,  you  know  noth- 
ing of  sociology,  and  your  biology  is  contemporaneous 
with  Pliny." 

Here  Colonel  Van  Gilbert  writhed  in  his  chair. 
There  was  perfect  quiet  in  the  room.  Everybody  sat 
fascinated  —  paralyzed,  I  may  say.  Such  fearful 
treatment  of  the  great  Colonel  Van  Gilbert  was  unheard 
of,  undreamed  of,  impossible  to  believe  —  the  great 
Colonel  Van  Gilbert  before  whom  judges  trembled 
when  he  arose  in  court.  But  Ernest  never  gave  quar- 
ter to  an  enemy. 

"This  is,  of  course,  no  reflection  on  you,"  Ernest  said. 
"Every  man  to  his  trade.  Only  you  stick  to  your 
trade,  and  I'll  stick  to  mine.  You  have  specialized. 
When  it  comes  to  a  knowledge  of  the  law,  of  how  best 
to  evade  the  law  or  make  new  law  for  the  benefit  of 


92  THE  IRON  HEEL 

thieving  corporations,  I  am  down  in  the  dirt  at  your 
feet.  But  when  it  comes  to  sociology  —  my  trade  — 
you  are  down  in  the  dirt  at  my  feet.  Remember  that. 
Remember,  also,  that  your  law  is  the  stuff  of  a  day,  and 
that  you  are  not  versatile  in  the  stuff  of  more  than  a 
day.  Therefore  your  dogmatic  assertions  and  rash 
generalizations  on  things  historical  and  sociological 
are  not  worth  the  breath  you  waste  on  them." 

Ernest  paused  for  a  moment  and  regarded  him 
thoughtfully,  noting  his  face  dark  and  twisted  with 
anger,  his  panting  chest,  his  writhing  body,  and  his 
slim  white  hands  nervously  clenching  and  unclench- 
ing. 

"But  it  seems  you  have  breath  to  use,  and  I'll  give 
you  a  chance  to  use  it.  I  indicted  your  class.  Show 
me  that  my  indictment  is  wrong.  I  pointed  out  to 
you  the  wretchedness  of  modern  man  —  three  million 
child  slaves  in  the  United  States,  without  whose  labor 
profits  would  not  be  possible,  and  fifteen  million  under- 
fed, ill-clothed,  and  worse-housed  people.  I  pointed 
out  that  modern  man's  producing  power  through  social 
organization  and  the  use  of  machinery  was  a  thousand 
times  greater  than  that  of  the  cave-man.  And  I  stated 
that  from  these  two  facts  no  other  conclusion  was  pos- 
sible than  that  the  capitalist  class  had  mismanaged. 
This  was  my  indictment,  and  I  specifically  and  at  length 
challenged  you  to  answer  it.  Nay,  I  did  more.  I 
prophesied  that  you  would  not  answer.     It  remains 


THE  PHILOMATHS  93 

for  your  breath  to  smash  my  prophecy.  You  called 
my  speech  fallacy.  Show  the  fallacy,  Colonel  Van 
Gilbert.  Answer  the  indictment  that  I  and  my  fifteen 
hundred  thousand  comrades  have  brought  against 
your  class   and  you." 

Colonel  Van  Gilbert  quite  forgot  that  he  was  presid- 
ing, and  that  in  courtesy  he  should  permit  the  other 
clamorers  to  speak.  He  was  on  his  feet,  flinging  his 
arms,  his  rhetoric,  and  his  control  to  the  winds,  alter- 
nately abusing  Ernest  for  his  youth  and  demagoguery, 
and  savagely  attacking  the  working  class,  elaborating 
its  inefficiency  and  worthlessness. 

"For  a  lawyer,  you  are  the  hardest  man  to  keep  to 
a  point  I  ever  saw,"  Ernest  began  his  answer  to  the 
tirade.  "My  youth  has  nothing  to  do  with  what  I 
have  enunciated.  Nor  has  the  worthlessness  of  the 
working  class.  I  charged  the  capitalist  class  with 
having  mismanaged  society.  You  have  not  answered. 
You  have  made  no  attempt  to  answer.  Why?  Is  it 
because  you  have  no  answer?  You  are  the  champion 
of  this  whole  audience.  Every  one  here,  except  me, 
is  hanging  on  your  lips  for  that  answer.  They  are 
hanging  on  your  lips  for  that  answer  because  they  have 
no  answer  themselves.  As  for  me,  as  I  said  before,  I 
know  that  you  not  only  cannot  answer,  but  that  you 
will  not  attempt  an  answer." 

"  This  is  intolerable  !"  Colonel  Van  Gilbert  cried  out. 
"'This  is  insult!" 


94  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"That  you  should  not  answer  is  intolerable,"  Ernest 
replied  gravely.  "No  man  can  be  intellectually  in- 
sulted. Insult,  in  its  very  nature,  is  emotional.  Re- 
cover yourself.  Give  me  an  intellectual  answer  to  my 
intellectual  charge  that  the  capitalist  class  has  mis- 
managed society." 

Colonel  Van  Gilbert  remained  silent,  a  sullen, 
superior  expression  on  his  face,  such  as  will  appear 
on  the  face  of  a  man  who  will  not  bandy  words  with 
a  ruffian. 

"Do  not  be  downcast,"  Ernest  said.  "Take  con- 
solation in  the  fact  that  no  member  of  your  class  has 
ever  yet  answered  that  charge."  He  turned  to  the 
other  men  who  were  anxious  to  speak.  "And  now  it's 
3'our  chance.  Fire  away,  and  do  not  forget  that  I 
here  challenge  you  to  give  the  answer  that  Colonel 
Van  Gilbert  has  failed  to  give." 

It  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  write  all  that  was 
said  in  the  discussion.  I  never  realized  before  how 
many  words  could  be  spoken  in  three  short  hours. 
At  any  rate,  it  was  glorious.  The  more  his  opponents 
grew  excited,  the  more  Ernest  deliberately  excited 
them.  He  had  an  encyclopaedic  command  of  the  field 
of  knowledge,  and  by  a  word  or  a  phrase,  by  delicate 
rapier  thrusts,  he  punctured  them.  He  named  the 
points  of  their  illogic.  This  was  a  false  syllogism,  that 
conclusion  had  no  connection  with  the  premise,  while 
that  next  premise  was  an  impostor  because  it  had  cun- 


THE  PHILOMATHS  95 

ningly  hidden  in  it  the  conclusion  that  was  being 
attempted  to  be  proved.  This  was  an  error,  that  was 
an  assumption,  and  the  next  was  an  assertion  contrary 
to  ascertained  truth  as  printed  in  all  the  text-books. 

And  so  it  went.  Sometimes  he  exchanged  the  rapier 
for  the  club  and  went  smashing  amongst  their  thoughts 
right  and  left.  And  always  he  demanded  facts  and 
refused  to  discuss  theories.  And  his  facts  made  for 
them  a  Waterloo.  When  they  attacked  the  working 
class,  he  always  retorted,  "The  pot  calling  the  kettle 
black ;  that  is  no  answer  to  the  charge  that  your  own 
face  is  dirty."  And  to  one  and  all  he  said:  "Why 
have  you  not  answered  the  charge  that  your  class  has 
mismanaged?  You  have  talked  about  other  things 
and  things  concerning  other  things,  but  you  have  not 
answered.     Is  it  because  you  have  no  answer?" 

It  was  at  the  end  of  the  discussion  that  Mr.  Wickson 
spoke.  He  was  the  only  one  that  was  cool,  and  Ernest 
treated  him  with  a  respect  he  had  not  accorded  the 
others. 

"No  answer  is  necessary,"  Mr.  Wickson  said  with 
slow  deliberation.  "I  have  followed  the  whole  dis- 
cussion with  amazement  and  disgust.  I  am  disgusted 
with  you,  gentlemen,  members  of  my  class.  You 
have  behaved  like  foolish  little  schoolboys,  what  with 
intruding  ethics  and  the  thunder  of  the  common  poli- 
tician into  such  a  discussion.  You  have  been  out- 
generalled  and  outclassed.     You  have  been  very  wordy, 


96  THE  IRON  HEEL 

and  all  you  have  done  is  buzz.  You  have  buzzed  like 
gnats  about  a  bear.  Gentlemen,  there  stands  the 
bear"  (he  pointed  at  Ernest),  "and  your  buzzing  has 
only  tickled  his  ears. 

"  Believe  me,  the  situation  is  serious.  That  bear 
reached  out  his  paws  to-night  to  crush  us.  He  has  said 
there  are  a  million  and  a  half  of  revolutionists  in  the 
United  States.  That  is  a  fact.  He  has  said  that  it 
is  their  intention  to  take  away  from  us  our  govern- 
ments, our  palaces,  and  all  our  purpled  ease.  That, 
also,  is  a  fact.  A  change,  a  great  change,  is  coming 
in  society;  but,  haply,  it  may  not  be  the  change  the 
bear  anticipates.  The  bear  has  said  that  he  will  crush 
us.     What  if  we  crush  the  bear?" 

The  throat-rumble  arose  in  the  great  room,  and 
man  nodded  to  man  with  indorsement  and  certitude. 
Their  faces  were  set  hard.  They  were  fighters,  that 
was  certain. 

"But  not  by  buzzing  will  we  crush  the  bear,"  Mr. 
Wickson  went  on  coldly  and  dispassionately.  "We 
will  hunt  the  bear.  We  will  not  reply  to  the  bear  in 
words.  Our  reply  shall  be  couched  in  terms  of  lead. 
We  are  in  power.  Nobody  will  deny  it.  By  virtue 
of  that  power  we  shall  remain  in  power." 

He  turned  suddenly  upon  Ernest.  The  moment  was 
dramatic. 

"This,  then,  is  our  answer.  We  have  no  words  to 
waste  on   you.     When  you   reach  out   your  vaunted 


THE  PHILOMATHS  97 

strong  hands  for  our  palaces  and  purpled  ease,  we  will 
show  you  what  strength  is.  In  roar  of  shell  and  shrap- 
nel and  in  whine  of  machine-guns  will  our  answer  be 
couched.1  We  will  grind  you  revolutionists  down 
under  our  heel,  and  we  shall  walk  upon  your  faces. 
The  world  is  ours,  we  are  its  lords,  and  ours  it  shall 
remain.  As  for  the  host  of  labor,  it  has  been  in  the 
dirt  since  history  began,  and  I  read  history  aright. 
And  in  the  dirt  it  shall  remain  so  long  as  I  and  mine 
and  those  that  come  after  us  have  the  power.  There 
is  the  word.  It  is  the  king  of  words  —  Power.  Not 
God,  not  Mammon,  but  Power.  Pour  it  over  your 
tongue  till  it  tingles  with  it.     Power." 

"I  am  answered,"  Ernest  said  quietly.  "It  is  the 
only  answer  that  could  be  given.  Power.  It  is  what 
we  of  the  working  class  preach.  We  know,  and  well 
we  know  by  bitter  experience,  that  no  appeal  for  the 
right,  for  justice,  for  humanity,  can  ever  touch  you. 
Your  hearts  are  hard  as  your  heels  with  which  you 
tread  upon  the  faces  of  the  poor.  So  we  have  preached 
power.  By  the  power  of  our  ballots  on  election  day 
will  we  take  your  government  away  from  you  — " 

"What  if  you  do  get  a  majority,  a  sweeping  majority, 
on  election  day?"  Mr.  Wickson  broke  in  to  demand. 

1  To  show  the  tenor  of  thought,  the  following  definition  is  quoted 
from  "The  Cynic's  Word  Book"  (1906  a.d.),  written  by  one  Ambrose 
Bierce,  an  avowed  and  confirmed  misanthrope  of  the  period :  "  Grape- 
shot,  n.     An  argument  which  the  future  is  preparing  in  answer  to  th°-    .■■ 
demands  of  American  Socialism." 

H 


98  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"  Suppose  we  refuse  to  turn  the  government  over 
to  you  after  you  have  captured  it  at  the  ballot- 
box?" 

"That,  also,  have  we  considered/'  Ernest  replied. 
"And  we  shall  give  you  an  answer  in  terms  of  lead. 
Power,  you  have  proclaimed  the  king  of  words. 
Ver}r  good.  Power  it  shall  be.  And  in  the  day  that 
we  sweep  to  victory  at  the  ballot-box,  and  you  refuse 
to  turn  over  to  us  the  government  we  have  constitu- 
tionally and  peacefully  captured,  and  you  demand 
what  we  are  going  to  do  about  it  —  in  that  day, 
I  say,  we  shall  answer  you ;  and  in  roar  of  shell  and 
shrapnel  and  in  whine  of  machine-guns  shall  our  answer 
be  couched. 

"You  cannot  escape  us.  It  is  true  that  you  have 
read  history  aright.  It  is  true  that  labor  has  from  the 
beginning  of  history  been  in  the  dirt.  And  it  is  equally 
true  that  so  long  as  you  and  yours  and  those  that  come 
after  you  have  power,  that  labor  shall  remain  in  the 
dirt.  I  agree  with  you.  I  agree  with  all  that  you 
have  said.  Power  will  be  the  arbiter,  as  it  always  has 
been  the  arbiter.  It  is  a  struggle  of  classes.  Just  as 
your  class  dragged  down  the  old  feudal  nobility,  so 
shall  it  be  dragged  down  by  my  class,  the  working 
class.  If  you  will  read  your  biology  and  your  sociology 
as  clearly  as  you  do  your  history,  you  will  see  that  this 
end  I  have  described  is  inevitable.  It  does  not  matter 
whether  it  is  in  one  year,  ten,  or  a  thousand — your  class 


THE  PHILOMATHS  99 

shall  be  dragged  down.  And  it  shall  be  done  by  power. 
We  of  the  labor  hosts  have  conned  that  word  over  till 
our  minds  are  all  a-tingle  with  it.  Power.  It  is  a 
kingly  word." 

And  so  ended  the  night  with  the  Philomaths. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ADUMBRATIONS 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  warnings  of  coming 
events  began  to  fall  about  us  thick  and  fast.  Ernest 
had  already  questioned  father's  policy  of  having 
socialists  and  labor  leaders  at  his  house,  and  of  openly 
attending  socialist  meetings;  and  father  had  only 
laughed  at  him  for  his  pains.  As  for  myself,  I  was 
learning  much  from  this  contact  with  the  working- 
class  leaders  and  thinkers.  I  was  seeing  the  other  side 
of  the  shield.  I  was  delighted  with  the  unselfishness 
and  high  idealism  I  encountered,  though  I  was  appalled 
by  the  vast  philosophic  and  scientific  literature  of 
socialism  that  was  opened  up  to  me.  I  was  learning 
fast,  but  I  learned  not  fast  enough  to  realize  then  the 
peril  of  our  position. 

There  were  warnings,  but  I  did  not  heed  them.  For 
instance,  Mrs.  Pertonwaithe  and  Mrs.  Wickson  exer- 
cised tremendous  social  power  in  the  university  town, 
and  from  them  emanated  the  sentiment  that  I  was  a  too- 
forward  and  self-assertive  young  woman  with  a  mis- 
chievous penchant  for  officiousness  and  interference 

100 


ADUMBRATIONS  101 

in  other  persons'  affairs.  This  I  thought  no  more  than 
natural,  considering  the  part  I  had  played  in  investi- 
gating the  case  of  Jackson's  arm.  But  the  effect  of 
such  a  sentiment,  enunciated  by  two  such  powerful 
social  arbiters,  I  underestimated. 

True,  I  noticed  a  certain  aloofness  on  the  part  of 
my  general  friends,  but  this  I  ascribed  to  the  dis- 
approval that  was  prevalent  in  my  circles  of  my  in- 
tended marriage  with  Ernest.  It  was  not  till  some 
time  afterward  that  Ernest  pointed  out  to  me  clearly 
that  this  general  attitude  of  my  class  was  something 
more  than  spontaneous,  that  behind  it  were  the  hidden 
springs  of  an  organized  conduct.  "You  have  given 
shelter  to  an  enemy  of  your  class,"  he  said.  "And 
not  alone  shelter,  for  you  have  given  your  love,  your- 
self. This  is  treason  to  your  class.  Think  not  that 
you  will  escape  being  penalized." 

But  it  was  before  this  that  father  returned  one  after- 
noon. Ernest  was  with  me,  and  we  could  see  that 
father  was  angry  —  philosophically  angry.  He  was 
rarely  really  angry ;  but  a  certain  measure  of  controlled 
anger  he  allowed  himself.  He  called  it  a  tonic.  And 
we  could  see  that  he  was  tonic-angry  when  he  entered 
the  room. 

"What  do  you  think?"  he  demanded.  "I  had 
luncheon  with  Wilcox." 

Wilcox  was  the  superannuated  president  of  the 
university,    whose    withered    mind    was    stored    with 


102  THE  IRON  HEEL 

generalizations  that  were  young  in  1870,  and  which 
he  had  since  failed  to  revise. 

"I  was  invited,"  father  announced.  "I  was  sent 
for." 

He  paused,  and  we  waited. 

"Oh,  it  was  done  very  nicely,  I'll  allow;  but  I  was 
reprimanded.     I !     And  by  that  old  fossil !" 

"I'll  wager  I  know  what  you  were  reprimanded  for," 
Ernest  said. 

"Not  in  three  guesses,"  father  laughed. 

"One  guess  will  do,"  Ernest  retorted.  "And  it 
won't  be  a  guess.  It  will  be  a  deduction.  You  were 
reprimanded  for  your  private  life." 

"The  very  thing!"  father  cried.  "How  did  you 
guess?" 

"I  knew  it  was  coming.  I  warned  you  before  about 
it." 

"Yes,  you  did,"  father  meditated.  "But  I  couldn't 
believe  it.  At  any  rate,  it  is  only  so  much  more  clinch- 
ing evidence  for  my  book." 

"It  is  nothing  to  what  will  come,"  Ernest  went  on, 
"if  you  persist  in  your  policy  of  having  these  socialists 
and  radicals  of  all  sorts  at  your  house,  myself  included." 

"Just  what  old  Wilcox  said.  And  of  all  unwarranted 
things  !  He  said  it  was  in  poor  taste,  utterly  profitless, 
anyway,  and  not  in  harmony  with  university  traditions 
and  policy.  He  said  much  more  of  the  same  vague 
sort,  and  I  couldn't  pin  him  down  to  anything  specific. 


ADUMBRATIONS  103 

I  made  it  pretty  awkward  for  him,  and  he  could  only 
go  on  repeating  himself  and  telling  me  how  much  he 
honored  me,  and  all  the  world  honored  me,  as  a  scien- 
tist. It  wasn't  an  agreeable  task  for  him.  I  could  see 
he  didn't  like  it." 

"He  was  not   a  free   agent,"   Ernest  said.     "The 
leg-bar  1  is  not  always  worn  graciously." 

"Yes.  I  got  that  much  out  of  him.  He  said  the 
university  needed  ever  so  much  more  money  this  year 
than  the  state  was  willing  to  furnish ;  and  that  it  must 
come  from  wealthy  personages  who  could  not  but  be 
offended  by  the  swerving  of  the  university  from  its 
high  ideal  of  the  passionless  pursuit  of  passionless  intel- 
ligence. When  I  tried  to  pin  him  down  to  what  my 
home  life  had  to  do  with  swerving  the  university  from 
its  high  ideal,  he  offered  me  a  two  years'  vacation,  on 
full  pay,  in  Europe,  for  recreation  and  research.  Of 
course  I  couldn't  accept  it  under  the  circumstances." 

"It  would  have  been  far  better  if  you  had,"  Ernest 
said  gravely. 

"It  was   a  bribe,"   father  protested;    and  Ernest 

nodded. 

"Also,  the  beggar  said  that  there  was  talk,  tea-table 
gossip  and  so  forth,  about  my  daughter  being  seen  in 
public  with  so  notorious  a  character  as  you,  and  that 

1  Leg-bar—  the  African  slaves  were  so  manacled;  also  criminals. 
It  was  not  until  the  coming  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Man  that  the  leg- 
bar  passed  out  of  use. 


104  THE  IRON  HEEL 

it  was  not  in  keeping  with  university  tone  and  dignity. 
Not  that  he  personally  objected  —  oh,  no ;  but  that 
there  was  talk  and  that  I  would  understand." 

Ernest  considered  this  announcement  for  a  moment, 
and  then  said,  and  his  face  was  very  grave,  withal  there 
was  a  sombre  wrath  in  it : 

"  There  is  more  behind  this  than  a  mere  university 
ideal.  Somebody  has  put  pressure  on  President 
Wilcox." 

"Do  you  think  so?"  father  asked,  and  his  face 
showed  that  he  was  interested  rather  than  frightened. 

"I  wish  I  could  convey  to  you  the  conception  that 
is  dimly  forming  in  my  own  mind,"  Ernest  said. 
"Never  in  the  history  of  the  world  was  society  in  so 
terrific  flux  as  it  is  right  now.  The  swift  changes  in 
our  industrial  system  are  causing  equally  swift  changes 
in  our  religious,  political,  and  social  structures.  An 
unseen  and  fearful  revolution  is  taking  place  in  the 
fibre  and  structure  of  society.  One  can  only  dimly 
feel  these  things.  But  they  are  in  the  air,  now,  to-day. 
One  can  feel  the  loom  of  them  —  things  vast,  vague, 
and  terrible.  My  mind  recoils  from  contemplation  of 
what  they  may  crystallize  into.  You  heard  Wickson 
talk  the  other  night.  Behind  what  he  said  were  the 
same  nameless,  formless  things  that  I  feel.  He  spoke 
out  of  a  superconscious  apprehension  of  them." 

"You  mean  .  .  .  ?"   father  began,  then  paused. 

"I  mean  that  there  is  a  shadow  of  something  colossal 


ADUMBRATIONS  105 

and  menacing  that  even  now  is  beginning  to  fall  across 
the  land.  Call  it  the  shadow  of  an  oligarchy,  if  you 
will ;  it  is  the  nearest  I  dare  approximate  it.  What  its 
nature  may  be  I  refuse  to  imagine.1  But  what  I  wanted 
to  say  was  this :  You  are  in  a  perilous  position  —  a  peril 
that  my  own  fear  enhances  because  I  am  not  able  even 
to  measure  it.  Take  my  advice  and  accept  the  vaca- 
tion." 

"But  it  would  be  cowardly,"  was  the  protest. 

"Not  at  all.  You  are  an  old  man.  You  have  done 
your  work  in  the  world,  and  a  great  work.  Leave  the 
present  battle  to  youth  and  strength.  We  young 
fellows  have  our  work  yet  to  do.  Avis  will  stand  by 
my  side  in  what  is  to  come.  She  will  be  your  repre- 
sentative in  the  battle-front." 

"But  they  can't  hurt  me,"  father  objected.  "Thank 
God  I  am  independent.  Oh,  I  assure  you,  I  know  the 
frightful  persecution  they  can  wage  on  a  professor  who 
is  economically  dependent  on  his  university.     But  I 

1  Though,  like  Everhard,  they  did  not  dream  of  the  nature  of  it, 
there  were  men,  even  before  his  time,  who  caught  glimpses  of  the 
shadow.  John  C.  Calhoun  said :  "  A  power  has  risen  up  in  the  govern- 
ment greater  than  the  people  themselves,  consisting  of  many  and  various 
and  powerful  interests,  combined,  into  one  mass,  and  held  together  by  the 
cohesive  power  of  the  vast  surplus  in  the  banks."  And  that  great  hu- 
manist, Abraham  Lincoln,  said,  just  before  his  assassinations  "J 
see  in  the  near  future  a  crisis  approaching  that  unnerves  me  and  causes 
me  to  tremble  for  the  safety  of  my  country.  .  .  .  Corporations  have  been 
enthroned,  an  era  of  corruption  in  high  places  will  follow,  and  the  money- 
power  of  the  country  will  endeavor  to  prolong  its  reign  by  working  upon 
the  prejudices  of  the  people  until  the  wealth  is  aggregated  in  a  few  hands 
and  the  Republic  is  destroyed." 


106  THE  IRON  HEEL 

am  independent.  I  have  not  been  a  professor  for  the 
sake  of  my  salary.  I  can  get  along  very  comfortably 
on  my  own  income,  and  the  salary  is  all  they  .can  take 
away  from  me." 

"But  you  do  not  realize,"  Ernest  answered.  "If 
all  that  I  fear  be  so,  your  private  income,  your  principal 
itself,  can  be  taken  from  you  just  as  easily  as  your 
salary." 

Father  was  silent  for  a  few  minutes.  He  was  think- 
ing deeply,  and  I  could  see  the  lines  of  decision  forming 
in  his  face.     At  last  he  spoke. 

"I  shall  not  take  the  vacation."  He  paused  again. 
"I  shall  go  on  with  my  book.1  You  may  be  wrong, 
but  whether  you  are  wrong  or  right,  I  shall  stand  by 
my  guns." 

'"All  right,"  Ernest  said.  "You  are  travelling  the 
same  path  that  Bishop  Morehouse  is,  and  toward  a 
similar  smash-up.  You'll  both  be  proletarians  before 
you're  done  with  it." 

The  conversation  turned  upon  the  Bishop,  and  we 
got  Ernest  to  explain  what  he  had  been  doing  with  him. 

1  This  book,  "Economics  and  Education,"  was  published  in  that 
year.  Three  copies  of  it  are  extant;  two  at  Ardis,  and  one  at  As- 
gard.  It  dealt,  in  elaborate  detail,  with  one  factor  in  the  persistence 
of  the  established,  namely,  the  capitalistic  bias  of  the  universities 
and  common  schools.  It  was  a  logical  and  crushing  indictment  of  the 
whole  system  of  education  that  developed  in  the  minds  of  the  students 
•only  such  ideas  as  were  favorable  to  the  capitalistic  regime,  to  the 
•exclusion  of  all  ideas  that  were  inimical  and  subversive.  The  book 
created  a  furor,  and  was  promptly  suppressed  by  the  Oligarchy. 


ADUMBRATIONS  107 

"He  is  soul-sick  from  the  journey  through  hell  I 
have  given  him.  I  took  him  through  the  homes  of  a 
few  of  our  factory  workers.  I  showed  him  the  human 
wrecks  cast  aside  by  the  industrial  machine,  and  he 
listened  to  their  life  stories.  I  took  him  through  the 
slums  of  San  Francisco,  and  in  drunkenness,  prostitu- 
tion, and  criminality  he  learned  a  deeper  cause  than 
innate  depravity.  He  is  very  sick,  and,  worse  than 
that,  he  has  got  out  of  hand.  He  is  too  ethical.  He 
has  been  too  severely  touched.  And,  as  usual,  he  is 
unpractical.  He  is  up  in  the  air  with  all  kinds  of  ethical 
delusions  and  plans  for  mission  work  among  the  cul- 
tured. He  feels  it  is  his  bounden  duty  to  resurrect  the 
ancient  spirit  of  the  Church  and  to  deliver  its  message 
to  the  masters.  He  is  overwrought.  Sooner  or  later 
he  is  going  to  break  out,  and  then  there's  going  to  be 
a  smash-up.  What  form  it  will  take  I  can't  even  guess. 
He  is  a  pure,  exalted  soul,  but  he  is  so  unpractical. 
He's  beyond  me.  I  can't  keep  his  feet  on  the  earth. 
And  through  the  air  he  is  rushing  on  to  his  Gethsemane. 
And  after  this  his  crucifixion.  Such  high  souls  are  made 
for  crucifixion." 

"And  you?"  I  asked;  and  beneath  my  smile  was 
the  seriousness  of  the  anxiety  of  love. 

"Not  I,"  he  laughed  back.  "I  may  be  executed,  or 
assassinated,  but  I  shall  never  be  crucified.  I  am 
planted  too  solidly  and  stolidly  upon  the  earth." 

"But  why  should  you  bring  about  the  crucifixion  of 


108  THE  IRON  HEEL 

the  Bishop?"  I  asked.  "You  will  not  deny  that  you 
are  the  cause  of  it." 

"Why  should  I  leave  one  comfortable  soul  in  com- 
fort when  there  are  millions  in  travail  and  misery?" 
he  demanded  back. 

"Then  why  did  you  advise  father  to  accept  the  vaca- 
tion?" 

"Because  I  am  not  a  pure,  exalted  soul,"  was  the 
answer.  "Because  I  am  solid  and  stolid  and  selfish. 
Because  I  love  you  and,  like  Ruth  of  old,  thy  people  are 
my  people.  As  for  the  Bishop,  he  has  no  daughter. 
Besides,  no  matter  how  small  the  good,  nevertheless 
his  little  inadequate  wail  will  be  productive  of  some 
good  in  the  revolution,  and  every  little  bit  counts." 

I  could  not  agree  with  Ernest.  I  knew  well  the 
noble  nature  of  Bishop  Morehouse,  and  I  could  not 
conceive  that  his  voice  raised  for  righteousness  would 
be  no  more  than  a  little  inadequate  wail.  But  I  did 
not  yet  have  the  harsh  facts  of  life  at  my  fingers'  ends 
as  Ernest  had.  He  saw  clearly  the  futility  of  the 
Bishop's  great  soul,  as  coming  events  were  soon  to 
show  as  clearly  to  me. 

It  was  shortly  after  this  day  that  Ernest  told  me,  as 
a  good  story,  the  offer  he  had  received  from  the  govern- 
ment, namely,  an  appointment  as  United  States  Com- 
missioner of  Labor.  I  was  overjoyed.  The  salary 
was  comparatively  large,  and  would  make  safe  our 
marriage.     And  then  it  surely  was  congenial  work  for 


ADUMBRATIONS  109 

Ernest,  and,  furthermore,  my  jealous  pride  in  him  made 
me  hail  the  proffered  appointment  as  a  recognition  of 
his  abilities. 

Then  I  noticed  the  twinkle  in  his  eyes.  He  was 
laughing  at  me. 

"You  are  not  going  to  ...  to  decline?"  I  quavered. 

"It  is  a  bribe,"  he  said.  "Behind  it  is  the  fine  hand 
of  Wickson,  and  behind  him  the  hands  of  greater  men 
than  he.  It  is  an  old  trick,  old  as  the  class  struggle  is 
old  —  stealing  the  captains  from  the  army  of  labor. 
Poor  betrayed  labor !  If  you  but  knew  how  many  of 
its  leaders  have  been  bought  out  in  similar  ways  in  the 
past.  It  is  cheaper,  so  much  cheaper,  to  buy  a  general 
than  to  fight  him  and  his  whole  army.  There  was  — 
but  I'll  not  call  any  names.  I'm  bitter  enough  over 
it  as  it  is.  Dear  heart,  I  am  a  captain  of  labor.  I  could 
not  sell  out.  If  for  no  other  reason,  the  memory  of 
my  poor  old  father  and  the  way  he  was  worked  to  death 
would  prevent." 

The  tears  were  in  his  eyes,  this  great,  strong  hero  of 
mine.  He  never  could  forgive  the  way  his  father  had 
been  malformed  —  the  sordid  lies  and  the  petty  thefts 
he  had  been  compelled  to,  in  order  to  put  food  in  his 
children's  mouths. 

"My  father  was  a  good  man,"  Ernest  once  said  to 
me.  "The  soul  of  him  was  good,  and  yet  it  was  twisted, 
and  maimed,  and  blunted  by  the  savagery  of  his  life. 
He  was  made  into  a  broken-down  beast  by  his  masters, 


110  THE  IRON  HEEL 

the  arch-beasts.  He  should  be  alive  to-day,  like  your 
father.  He  had  a  strong  constitution.  But  he  was 
caught  in  the  machine  and  worked  to  death  —  for 
profit.  Think  of  it.  For  profit  —  his  life  blood  trans- 
muted into  a  wine-supper,  or  a  jewelled  gewgaw,  or 
some  similar  sense-orgy  of  the  parasitic  and  idle  rich, 
his  masters,  the  arch-beasts." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   BISHOP'S   VISION 

"The  Bishop  is  out  of  hand,"  Ernest  wrote  me. 
"He  is  clear  up  in  the  air.  To-night  he  is  going  to 
begin  putting  to  rights  this  very  miserable  world  of 
ours.  He  is  going  to  deliver  his  message.  He  has 
told  me  so,  and  I  cannot  dissuade  him.  To-night 
he  is  chairman  of  the  I.  P.  H.,  and  he  will  embody  his 
message  in  his  introductory  remarks. 

"May  I  bring  you  to  hear  him?  Of  course,  he  is 
foredoomed  to  futility.  It  will  break  your  heart  — 
it  will  break  his;  but  for  you  it  will  be  an  excellent 
object  lesson.  You  know,  dear  heart,  how  proud  I  am 
because  you  love  me.  And  because  of  that  I  want  you 
to  know  my  fullest  value,  I  want  to  redeem,  in  your 
eyes,  some  small  measure  of* my  unworthiness.  And 
so  it  is  that  my  pride  desires  that  you  shall  know  my 
thinking  is  correct  and  right.  My  views  are  harsh; 
the  futility  of  so  noble  a  soul  as  the  Bishop  will  show  you 
the  compulsion  for  such  harshness.  So  come  to-night. 
Sad  though  this  night's  happening  will  be,  I  feel  that  it 
will  but  draw  you  more  closely  to  me." 

The  I.  P.  H.1  held  its  convention  that  night  in  San 

1  There  is  no  clew  to  the  name  of  the  organization  for  which  theae 

initials  stand. 

Ill 


112  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Francisco.1  This  convention  had  been  called  to  con- 
sider public  immorality  and  the  remedy  for  it.  Bishop 
Morehouse  presided.  He  was  very  nervous  as  he  sat 
on  the  platform,  and  I  could  see  the  high  tension  he  was 
under.  By  his  side  were  Bishop  Dickinson;  H.  II. 
Jones,  the  head  of  the  ethical  department  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  California;  Mrs.  W.  W.  Hurd,  the  great 
charity  organizer;  Philip  Ward,  the  equally  great 
philanthropist;  and  several  lesser  luminaries  in  the 
field  of  morality  and  charity.  Bishop  Morehouse  arose 
and  abruptly  began : 

"I  was  in  my  brougham,  driving  through  the  streets. 
It  was  night-time.  Now  and  then  I  looked  through 
the  carriage  windows,  and  suddenly  my  eyes  seemed  to 
be  opened,  and  I  saw  things  as  they  really  are.  At  first 
I  covered  my  eyes  with  my  hands  to  shut  out  the 
awful  sight,  and  then,  in  the  darkness,  the  question 
came  to  me  :  What  is  to  be  done  ?  What  is  to  be  done  ? 
A  little  later  the  question  came  to  me  in  another  way : 
What  would  the  Master  do?  And  with  the  question 
a  great  light  seemed  to  fill  the  place,  and  I  saw  my  duty 
sun-clear,  as  Saul  saw  his  on  the  way  to  Damascus. 

"I  stopped  the  carriage,  got  out,  and,  after  a  few 
minutes'  conversation,  persuaded  two  of  the  public 
women  to  get  into  the  brougham  with  me.     If  Jesus 

1  It  took  but  a  few  minutes  to  cross  by  ferry  from  Berkeley  to  San 
Francisco.  These,  and  the  other  bay  cities,  practically  composed  one 
community. 


THE  BISHOP'S  VISION  113 

was  right,  then  these  two  unfortunates  were  my  sisters, 
and  the  only  hope  of  their  purification  was  in  my 
affection  and  tenderness. 

"I  live  in  one  of  the  loveliest  localities  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. The  house  in  which  I  live  cost  a  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars,  and  its  furnishings,  books,  and  works  of 
art  cost  as  much  more.  The  house  is  a  mansion. 
No,  it  is  a  palace,  wherein  there  are  many  servants.  I 
never  knew  what  palaces  were  good  for.  I  had  thought 
they  were  to  live  in.  But  now  I  know.  I  took  the 
two  women  of  the  street  to  my  palace,  and  they  are 
going  to  stay  with  me.  I  hope  to  fill  every  room  in  my 
palace  with  such  sisters  as  they." 

The  audience  had  been  growing  more  and  more 
restless  and  unsettled,  and  the  faces  of  those  that  sat 
on  the  platform  had  been  betraying  greater  and  greater 
dismay  and  consternation.  And  at  this  point  Bishop 
Dickinson  arose,  and,  with  an  expression  of  disgust 
on  his  face,  fled  from  the  platform  and  the  hall.  But 
Bishop  Morehouse,  oblivious  to  all,  his  eyes  filled  with 
his  vision,  continued: 

"Ch,  sisters  and  brothers,  in  this  act  of  mine  I  find 
the  solution  of  all  my  difficulties.  I  didn't  know  what 
broughams  were  made  for,  but  now  I  know.  They  are 
made  to  carry  the  weak,  the  sick,  and  the  aged ;  they 
are  made  to  show  honor  to  those  who  have  lost  the 
sense  even  of  shame. 

"I  did  not  know  what  palaces  were  made  for,  but 


114  THE  IRON  HEEL 

now  I  have  found  a  use  for  them.  The  palaces  of  the 
Church  should  be  hospitals  and  nurseries  for  those 
who  have  fallen  by  the  wayside  and  are  perishing." 

He  made  a  long  pause,  plainly  overcome  by  the 
thought  that  was  in  him,  and  nervous  how  best  to 
express  it. 

"I  am  not  fit,  dear  brethren,  to  tell  you  anything 
about  morality.  I  have  lived  in  shame  and  hypocrisies 
too  long  to  be  able  to  help  others ;  but  my  action  with 
those  women,  sisters  of  mine,  shows  me  that  the  better 
way  is  easy  to  find.  To  those  who  believe  in  Jesus  and 
his  gospel  there  can  be  no  other  relation  between  man 
and  man  than  the  relation  of  affection.  Love  alone  is 
stronger  than  sin  —  stronger  than  death.  I  therefore 
say  to  the  rich  among  you  that  it  is  their  duty  to  do 
what  I  have  done  and  am  doing.  Let  each  one  of  you 
who  is  prosperous  take  into  his  house  some  thief  and 
treat  him  as  his  brother,  some  unfortunate  and  treat 
her  as  his  sister,  and  San  Francisco  will  need  no  police 
force  and  no  magistrates;  the  prisons  will  be  turned 
into  hospitals,  and  the  criminal  will  disappear  with  his 
crime. 

"  We  must  give  ourselves  and  not  our  money  alone. 
We  must  do  as  Christ  did ;  that  is  the  message  of  the 
Church  to-day.  We  have  wandered  far  from  the 
Master's  teaching.  We  are  consumed  in  our  own  flesh- 
pots.  We  have  put  mammon  in  the  place  of  Christ. 
I  hare  here  a  poem  that  tells  the  whole  story.     I  should 


THE  BISHOP'S  VISION  115 

like  to  read  it  to  you.  It  was  written  by  an  erring  soul 
who  yet  saw  clearly.1  It  must  not  be  mistaken  for  an 
attack  upon  the  Catholic  Church.  It  is  an  attack  upon 
all  churches,  upon  the  pomp  and  splendor  of  all  churches 
that  have  wandered  from  the  Master's  path  and  hedged 
themselves  in  from  his  lambs.     Here  it  is: 

"The  silver  trumpets  rang  across  the  Dome; 
The  people  knelt  upon  the  ground  with  awe; 
And  borne  upon  the  necks  of  men  I  saw, 
Like  some  great  God,  the  Holy  Lord  of  Rome. 

"Priest-like,  he  wore  a  robe  more  white  than  foam, 
And,  king-like,  swathed  himself  in  royal  red, 
Three  crowns  of  gold  rose  high  upon  his  head ; 
In  splendor  and  in  light  the  Pope  passed  home. 

"  My  heart  stole  back  across  wide  wastes  of  years 
To  One  who  wandered  by  a  lonely  sea; 
And  sought  in  vain  for  any  place  of  rest: 
'Foxes  have  holes,  and  every  bird  its  nest, 

I,  only  I,  must  wander  wearily, 
And  bruise  my  feet,  and  drink  wine  salt  with  tears.' " 

The  audience  was  agitated,  but  unresponsive.  Yet 
Bishop  Morehouse  was  not  aware  of  it.  He  held 
steadily  on  his  way. 

"And  so  I  say  to  the  rich  among  you,  and  to  all  the 

rich,   that  bitterly  you   oppress  the   Master's  lambs. 

You  have  hardened  your  hearts.     You  have  closed  your 

ears  to  the  voices  that  are  crying  in  the  land  —  the 

1  Oscar  Wilde,  one  of  the  lords  of  language  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury of  the  Christian  Era. 


116  THE  IRON  HEEL 

voices  of  pain  and  sorrow  that  you  will  not  hear  but 
that  some  day  will  be  heard.     And  so  I  say  — '' 

But  at  this  point  H.  H.  Jones  and  Philip  Ward,  who 
had  already  risen  from  their  chairs,  led  the  Bishop  off 
the  platform,  while  the  audience  sat  breathless  and 
.shocked. 

Ernest  laughed  harshly  and  savagely  when  he  had 
gained  the  street.  His  laughter  jarred  upon  me.  My 
heart  seemed  ready  to  burst  with  suppressed  tears. 

"He  has  delivered  his  message,"  Ernest  cried.  "The 
manhood  and  the  deep-hidden,  tender  nature  of  their 
Bishop  burst  out,  and  his  Christian  audience,  that  loved 
him,  concluded  that  he  was  crazy !  Did  you  see  them 
leading  him  so  solicitously  from  the  platform?  There 
must  have  been  laughter  in  hell  at  the  spectacle." 

"Nevertheless,  it  will  make  a  great  impression,  what 
the  Bishop  did  and  said  to-night,"  I  said. 

"Think  so?"    Ernest  queried  mockingly. 

"It  will  make  a  sensation,"  I  asserted.  "Didn't  you 
see  the  reporters  scribbling  like  mad  while  he  was 
speaking?" 

"Not  a  line  of  which  will  appear  in  to-morrow's 
papers." 

"I  can't  believe  it,"  I  cried. 

"Just  wait  and  see,"  was  the  answer.  "Not  a  line, 
not  a  thought  that  he  uttered.  The  daily  press  ?  The 
i  daily  suppressage !" 

"But  the  reporters,"  I  objected.     "I  saw  them." 


THE  BISHOP'S  VISION  117 

"Not  a  word  that  he  uttered  will  see  print.  You 
have  forgotten  the  editors.  They  draw  their  salaries 
for  the  policy  they  maintain.  Their  policy  is  to  print 
nothing  that  is  a  vital  menace  to  the  established.  The 
Bishop's  utterance  was  a  violent  assault  upon  the 
established  morality.  It  was  heresy.  They  led  him 
from  the  platform  to  prevent  him  from  uttering  more 
heresy.  The  newspapers  will  purge  his  heresy  in  the 
oblivion  of  silence.  The  press  of  the  United  States? 
It  is  a  parasitic  growth  that  battens  on  the  capitalist 
class.  Its  function  is  to  serve  the  established  by 
moulding  public  opinion,  and  right  well  it  serves  it. 

"Let  me  prophesy.  To-morrow's  papers  will  merely 
mention  that  the  Bishop  is  in  poor  health,  that  he  has 
been  working  too  hard,  and  that  he  broke  down  last 
night.  The  next  mention,  some  days  hence,  will  be 
to  the  effect  that  he  is  suffering  from  nervous  prostra- 
tion and  has  been  given  a  vacation  by  his  grateful  flock. 
After  that,  one  of  two  things  will  happen :  either  the 
Bishop  will  see  the  error  of  his  way  and  return  from 
his  vacation  a  well  man  in  whose  eyes  there  are  no 
more  visions,  or  else  he  will  persist  in  his  madness, 
and  then  you  may  expect  to  see  in  the  papers,  couched 
pathetically  and  tenderly,  the  announcement  of  his 
insanity.  After  that  he  will  be  left  to  gibber  his 
visions  to  padded  walls." 

"Now  there  you  go  too  far !"  I  cried  out. 

"In  the  eyes  of  society  it  will  truly  be  insanity,"  he 


US  THE  IRON  HEEL 

replied.  "What  honest  man,  who  is  not  insane,  would 
take  lost  women  and  thieves  into  his  house  to  dwell 
with  him  sisterly  and  brotherly?  True,  Christ  died 
between  two  thieves,  but  that  is  another  story.  In- 
sanity? The  mental  processes  of  the  man  with  whom 
one  disagrees,  are  always  wrong.  Therefore  the  mind 
of  the  man  is  wrong.  Where  is  the  line  between  wrong 
mind  and  insane  mind?  It  is  inconceivable  that  any 
sane  man  can  radically  disagree  with  one's  most  sane 
conclusions. 

"There  is  a  good  example  of  it  in  this  evening's 
paper.  Mary  McKenna  lives  south  of  Market  Street. 
She  is  a  poor  but  honest  woman.  She  is  also  patriotic. 
But  she  has  erroneous  ideas  concerning  the  American 
flag  and  the  protection  it  is  supposed  to  symbolize. 
And  here's  what  happened  to  her.  Her  husband  had 
an  accident  and  was  laid  up  in  hospital  three  months. 
In  spite  of  taking  in  washing,  she  got  behind  in  her 
rent.  Yesterday  they  evicted  her.  But  first,  she 
hoisted  an  American  flag,  and  from  under  its  folds  she 
announced  that  by  virtue  of  its  protection  they  could 
not  turn  her  out  on  to  the  cold  street.  What  was  done  ? 
She  was  arrested  and  arraigned  for  insanity.  To-day 
she  was  examined  by  the  regular  insanity  experts. 
She  was  found  insane.  She  was  consigned  to '  the 
Napa  Asylum." 

"But  that  is  far-fetched,"  I  objected.  "Suppose  I 
should  disagree  with  everybody  about  the  literary  style 


THE  BISHOP'S  VISION  119 

of  a  book.  They  wouldn't  send  me  to  an  asylum  for 
that." 

"Very  true,"  he  replied.  "But  such  divergence  of 
opinion  would  constitute  no  menace  to  society.  Therein 
lies  the  difference.  The  divergence  of  opinion  on  the 
parts  of  Mary  McKenna  and  the  Bishop  do  menace 
society.  What  if  all  the  poor  people  should  refuse  to 
pay  rent  and  shelter  themselves  under  the  American 
flag  ?  Landlordism  would  go  crumbling.  The  Bishop's 
views  are  just  as  perilous  to  society.  Ergo,  to  the 
asylum  with  him." 

But  still  I  refused  to  believe. 

"Wait  and  see,"  Ernest  said,  and  I  waited. 

Next  morning  I  sent  out  for  all  the  papers.-  So  far 
Ernest  was  right.  Not  a  word  that  Bishop  Morehouse 
had  uttered  was  in  print.  Mention  was  made  in  one  or 
two  of  the  papers  that  he  had  been  overcome  by  his 
feelings.  Yet  the  platitudes. of  the  speakers  that  fol- 
lowed him  were  reported  at  length. 

Several  days  later  the  brief  announcement  was  made 
that  he  had  gone  away  on  a  vacation  to  recover  from 
the  effects  of  overwork.  So  far  so  good,  but  there  had 
been  no  hint  of  insanity,  nor  even  of  nervous  collapse. 
Little  did  I  dream  the  terrible  road  the  Bishop  was 
destined  to  travel  —  the  Gethsemane  and  crucifixion 
that  Ernest  had  pondered  about. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   MACHINE   BREAKERS 

It  was  just  before  Ernest  ran  for  Congress,  on  the 
socialist  ticket,  that  father  gave  what  he  privately 
called  his  " Profit  and  Loss"  dinner.  Ernest  called  it 
the  dinner  of  the  Machine  Breakers.  In  point  of  fact, 
it  was  merely  a  dinner  for  business  men  —  small 
business  men,  of  course.  I  doubt  if  one  of  them  was 
interested  in  any  business  the  total  capitalization  of 
which  exceeded  a  couple  of  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
They  were  truly  representative  middle-class  business 
men. 

There  was  Owen,  of  Silverberg,  Owen  &  Company  — 

a  large  grocery  firm  with  several  branch  stores.     We 

bought   our  groceries   from  them.     There   were  both 

partners  of  the  big  drug  firm  of  Kowalt  &  Washburn, 

and  Mr.  Asmunsen,  the  owner  of  a  large  granite  quarry 

in  Contra  Costa  County.     And  there  were  many  similar 

men,   owners  or  part-owners  in  small  factories,  small 

businesses    and    small    industries  —  small    capitalists, 

in  short. 

They  were  shrewd-faced,  interesting  men,  and  they 

120 


THE  MACHINE  BREAKERS  121 

talked  with  simplicity  and  clearness.  Their  unani- 
mous complaint  was  against  the  corporations  and  trusts. 
Their  creed  was,  "Bust  the  Trusts."  All  oppression 
originated  in  the  trusts,  and  one  and  all  told  the  same 
tale  of  woe.  They  advocated  government  ownership 
of  such  trusts  as  the  railroads  and  telegraphs,  and 
excessive  income  taxes,  graduated  with  ferocity,  to 
destroy  large  accumulations.  Likewise  they  advo- 
cated, as  a  cure  for  local  ills,  municipal  ownership  of 
such  public  utilities  as  water,  gas,  telephones,  and 
street  railways. 

Especially  interesting  was  Mr.  Asmunsen's  narrative 
of  his  tribulations  as  a  quarry  owner.  He  confessed 
that  he  never  made  any  profits  out  of  his  quarry,  and 
this,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  volume  of  business  that 
had  been  caused  by  the  destruction  of  San  Francisco 
by  the  big  earthquake.  For  six  years  the  rebuilding 
of  San  Francisco  had  been  going  on,  and  his  business 
had  quadrupled  and  octupled,  and  yet  he  wcs  no  better 
off. 

"The  railroad  knows  my  business  just  a  little  bit 
better  than  I  do,"  he  said.  "It  knows  my  operating 
expenses  to  a  cent,  and  it  knows  the  terms  of  my  con- 
tracts. How  it  knows  these  things  I  can  only  guess. 
It  must  have  spies  in  my  employ,  and  it  must  have 
access  to  the  parties  to  all  my  contracts.  For  look 
you,  when  I  place  a  big  contract,  the  terms  of  which 
favor  me  a  goodly  profit,  the  freight  rate  from  my 


122  THE  IRON  HEEL 

quarry  to  market  is  promptly  raised.  No  explanation 
is  made.  The  railroad  gets  my  profit.  Under  such 
circumstances  I  have  never  succeeded  in  getting  the 
railroad  to  reconsider  its  raise.  On  the  other  hand, 
when  there  have  been  accidents,  increased  expenses  of 
operating,  or  contracts  with  less  profitable  terms,  I 
have  always  succeeded  in  getting  the  railroad  to  lower 
its  rate.  What  is  the  result?  Large  or  small,  the 
railroad  always  gets  my  profits." 

"What  remains  to  you  over  and  above,"  Ernest 
interrupted  to  ask,  "would  roughly  be  the  equivalent 
of  your  salary  as  a  manager  did  the  railroad  own  the 
quarry. " 

"The  very  thing,"  Mr.  Asmunsen  replied.  "Only 
a  short  time  ago  I  had  my  books  gone  through  for  the 
past  ten  years.  I  discovered  that  for  those  ten  years 
my  gain  was  just  equivalent  to  a  manager's  salary. 
The  railroad  might  just  as  well  have  owned  my  quarry 
and  hired  me  to  run  it." 

"But  with  this  difference,"  Ernest  laughed;  "the 
railroad  would  have  had  to  assume  all  the  risk  which 
you  so  obligingly  assumed  for  it."' 

"Very  true,"  Mr.  Asmunsen  answered  sadly. 

Having  let  them  have  their  say,  Ernest  began  asking 
questions  right  and  left.     He  began  with  Mr.  Owen. 

"You  started  a  branch  store  here  in  Berkeley  about 
six  months  ago?" 

"Yes,"  Mr.  Owen  answered. 


THE  MACHINE  BREAKERS  123 

"And  since  then  I've  noticed  that  three  little  corner 
groceries  have  gone  out  of  business.  Was  your  branch 
store  the  cause  of  it?" 

Mr.  Owen  affirmed  with  a  complacent  smile.  "They 
had  no  chance  against  us." 

"Why  not?"      „ 

"We  had  greater  capital.  With  a  large  business 
there  is  always  less  waste  and  greater  efficiency." 

"And  your  branch  store  absorbed  the  profits  of  the 
three  small  ones.  I  see.  But  tell  me,  what  became 
of  the  owners  of  the  three  stores?" 

"One  is  driving  a  delivery  wagon  for  us.  I  don't 
know  what  happened  to  the  other  two." 

Ernest  turned  abruptly  on  Mr.  Kowalt. 

"You  sell  a  great  deal  at  cut-rates.1  What  have 
become  of  the  owners  of  the  small  drug  stores  that  you 
forced  to  the  wall?" 

"One  of  them,  Mr.  Haasfurther,  has  charge  now  of 
our  prescription  department,"  was  the  answer. 

"And  you  absorbed  the  profits  they  had  been  mak- 
ing?" 

"Surely.     That  is  what  we  are  in  business  for." 

"And  you  ?"  Ernest  said  suddenly  to  Mr.  Asmunsen. 
"You  are  disgusted  because  the  railroad  has  absorbed 
your  profits?" 

1  A  lowering  of  selling  price  to  cost,  and  even  to  less  than  cost. 
Thus,  a  large  company  could  sell  at  a  loss  for  a  longer  period  than  a 
small  company,  and  po  drive  the  small  company  out  of  business.  A 
common  device  of  competition. 


124  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Mr.  Asmunsen  nodded. 

"What  you  want  is  to  make  profits  yourself?" 

Again  Mr.  Asmunsen  nodded. 

"Out  of  others?" 

There  was  no  answer. 

"Out  of  others?"  Ernest  insisted. 

"That  is  the  way  profits  are  made,"  Mr.  Asmunsen 
replied  curtly. 

"Then  the  business  game  is  to  make  profits  out  of 
others,  and  to  prevent  others  from  making  profits  out 
of  you.     That's  it,  isn't  it?" 

Ernest  had  to  repeat  his  question  before  Mr.  Asmun- 
sen gave  an  answer,  and  then  he  said : 

"Yes,  that's  it,  except  that  we  do  not  object  to  the 
others  making  profits  so  long  as  they  are  not  extor- 
tionate." 

"By  extortionate  you  mean  large ;  yet  you  do  not  ob- 
ject to  making  large  profits  yourself?  .  .  .  Surely  not?" 

And  Mr.  Asmunsen  amiably  confessed  to  the  weak- 
ness. There  was  one  other  man  who  was  quizzed  by 
Ernest  at  this  juncture,  a  Mr.  Calvin,  who  had  once 
been  a  great  dairy-owner. 

"Some  time  ago  you  were  fighting  the  Milk  Trust," 
Ernest  said  to  him;  "and  now  you  are  in  Grange  poli- 
tics.1    How  did  it  happen?" 

1  Many  efforts  were  made  during  this  period  to  organize  the  perish- 
ing farmer  class  into  a  political  party,  the  aim  of  which  was  to  destroy 
the  trusts  and  corporations  by  drastic  legislation.  All  such  attempts 
ended  in  failure. 


THE  MACHINE  BREAKERS  125 

"Oh,  I  haven't  quit  the  fight,"  Mr.  Calvin  answered, 
and  he  looked  belligerent  enough.  "I'm  fighting  the 
Trust  on  the  only  field  where  it  is  possible  to  fight  — 
the  political  field.  Let  me  show  you.  A  few  years  ago 
we  dairymen  had  everything  our  own  way." 

"But  you  competed  among  yourselves?"  Ernest 
interrupted. 

"Yes,  that  was  what  kept  the  profits  down.  We 
did  try  to  organize,  but  independent  dairymen  always 
broke  through  us.     Then  came  the  Milk  Trust." 

"Financed  by  surplus  capital  from  Standard  Oil,"  * 
Ernest  said. 

"Yes;"  Mr.  Calvin  acknowledged.  "But  we  did 
not  know  it  at  the  time.  Its  agents  approached  us 
with  a  club.  'Come  in  and  be  fat,'  was  their  proposi- 
tion, 'or  stay  out  and  starve.'  Most  of  us  came  in. 
Those  that  didn't,  starved.  Oh,  it  paid  us  ...  at  first. 
Milk  was  raised  a  cent  a  quart.  One-quarter  of  this 
cent  came  to  us.  Three-quarters  of  it  went  to  the 
Trust.  Then  milk  was  raised  another  cent,  only  we 
didn't  get  any  of  that  cent.  Our  complaints  were  use- 
less. The  Trust  was  in  control.  We  discovered  that 
we  were  pawns.  Finally,  the  additional  quarter  of  a 
cent  was  denied  us.  Then  the  Trust  began  to  squeeze 
us  out.  What  could  we  do?  We  were  squeezed  out. 
There  were  no  dairymen,  only  a  Milk  Trust." 

1  The  first  successful  great  trust —  almost  a  generation  in  advance 
of  the  rest. 


126  ,       THE  IRON  HEEL 

"But  with  milk  two  cents  higher,  I  should  think 
you  could  have  competed,"  Ernest  suggested  slyly. 

"So  we  thought.  We  tried  it."  Mr.  Calvin  paused 
a  moment.  "It  broke  us.  The  Trust  could  put  milk 
upon  the  market  more  cheaply  than  we.  It  could  sell 
still  at  a  slight  profit  when  we  were  selling  at  actual 
loss.  I  dropped  fifty  thousand  dollars  in  that  venture. 
Most  of  us  went  bankrupt.1  The  dairymen  were  wiped 
out  of  existence." 

"So  the  Trust  took  your  profits  away  from  you," 
Ernest  said,  "and  you've  gone  into  politics  in  order  to 
legislate  the  Trust  out  of  existence  and  get  the  profits 
back?" 

Mr.  Calvin's  face  lighted  up.  "That  is  precisely 
what  I  say  in  my  speeches  to  the  farmers.  That's  our 
whole  idea  in  a  nutshell." 

"And  yet  the  Trust  produces  milk  more  cheaply 
than  could  the  independent  dairymen?"-  Ernest 
queried. 

"Why  shouldn't  it,  with  the  splendid  organization 
and  new  machinery  its  large  capital  makes  possible?" 

"There   is   no   discussion,"    Ernest    answered.     "Itv 
certainly  should,  and,  furthermore,  it  does." 

Mr.  Calvin  here  launched  out  into  a  political  speech 
in  exposition  of  his  views.     He  was  warmly  followed  by 

1  Bankruptcy —  a  peculiar  institution  that  enabled  an  individual, 
who  had  failed  in  competitive  industry,  to  forego  paying  his  debts. 
The  effect  was  to  ameliorate  the  too  savage  conditions  of  the  fang- 
and-claw  social  struggle. 


THE  MACHINE  BREAKERS  127 

a  number  of  the  others,  and  the  cry  of  all  was  to  destroy 
the  trusts. 

"Poor  simple  folk,"  Ernest  said  to  me  in  an  under- 
tone. "They  see  clearly  as  far  as  they  see,  but  they 
see  only  to  the  ends  of  their  noses." 

A  little  later  he  got  the  floor  again,  and  in  his  charac- 
teristic way  controlled  it  for  the   rest  of  the  evening. 

"I  have  listened  carefully  to  all  of  you,"  he  began, 
"and  I  see  plainly  that  you  play  the  business  game  in 
the  orthodox  fashion.  Life  sums  itself  up  to  you  in 
profits.  You  have  a  firm  and  abiding  belief  that  you 
were  created  for  the  sole  purpose  of  making  profits. 
Only  there  is  a  hitch.  In  the  midst  of  your  own  profit- 
making  along  comes  the  trust  and  takes  your  profits 
away  from  you.  This  is  a  dilemma  that  interferes 
somehow  with  the  aim  of  creation,  and  the  only  way 
out,  as  it  seems  to  you,  is  to  destroy  that  which  takes 
from  you  your  profits. 

"I  have  listened  carefully,  and  there  is  only  one  name 
that  will  epitomize  you.  I  shall  call  you  that  name. 
You  are  machine-breakers.  Do  you  know  what  a 
machine-breaker  is?  Let  me  tell  you.  In  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  in  England,  men  and  women  wove 
cloth  on  hand-looms  in  their  own  cottages.  It  was  a 
slow,  clumsy,  and  costly  way  of  weaving  cloth,  this 
cottage  system  of  manufacture.  Along  came  the  steam- 
engine  and  labor-saving  machinery.  A  thousand  looms 
assembled  in  a  large  factory,  and  driven  by  a  central 


128  THE  IRON  HEEL 

engine  wove  cloth  vastly  more  cheaply  than  could  the 
cottage  weavers  on  their  hand-looms.  Here  in  the 
factory  was  combination,  and  before  it  competition 
faded  away.  The  men  and  women  who  had  worked 
the  hand-looms  for  themselves  now  went  into  the  fac- 
tories and  worked  the  machine-looms,  not  for  them- 
selves, but  for  the  capitalist  owners.  Furthermore, 
little  children  went  to  work  on  the  machine-looms,  at 
lower  wages,  and  displaced  the  men.  This  made  hard 
times  for  the  men.  Their  standard  of  living  fell.  They 
starved.  And  they  said  it  was  all  the  fault  of  the 
machines.  Therefore  they  proceeded  to  break  the 
machines.  They  did  not  succeed,  and  they  were  very 
stupid. 

"Yet  you  have  not  learned  their  lesson.  Here  are 
you,  a  century  and  a  half  later,  trying  to  break  machines. v 
By  your  own  confession  the  trust  machines  do  the  work 
more  efficiently  and  more  cheaply  than  you  can.  That 
is  why  you  cannot  compete  with  them.  And  yet  you 
would  break  those  machines.  You  are  even  more 
stupid  than  the  stupid  workmen  of  England.  And 
while  you  maunder  about  restoring  competition,  the 
trusts  go  on  destroying  you. 

"One  and  all  you  tell  the  same  story,  —  the  passing 
away  of  competition  and  the  coming  on  of  combination. 
You,  Mr.  Owen,  destroyed  competition  here  in  Berkeley 
when  your  branch  store  drove  the  three  small  groceries 
out  of  business.     Your  combination  was  more  effective. 


THE  MACHINE  BREAKERS  129 

Yet  you  feel  the  pressure  of  other  combinations  on  you, 
the  trust  combinations,  and  you  cry  out.     It  is  because 
,  you  are  not  a  trust.     If  you  were  a  grocery  trust  for 
the  whole  United  States,  you  would  be  singing  another 
song.     And  the  song  would  be,  'Blessed  are  the  trusts.' 
And  yet  again,  not  only  is  your  small  combination  not 
a  trust,  but  you  are  aware  yourself  of  its  lack  of  strength. 
You  are  beginning  to  divine  your  own  end.     You  feel 
yourself  and  your  branch  stores  a  pawn  in  the  game. 
You  see  the  powerful  interests  rising  and  growing  more 
powerful  day  by  day;    you  feel  their  mailed  hands 
descending  upon  your  profits  and  taking  a  pinch  here 
and  a  pinch  there  —  the  railroad  trust,  the  oil  trust, 
the  steel  trust,  the  coal  trust;    and  you  know  that  in 
the  end  they  will  destroy  you,  take  away  from  you  the 
last  per  cent  of  your  little  profits.  * 

"  You,  sir,  are  a  poor  gamester.     When  you  squeezed 
out  the  three  small  groceries  here  in  Berkeley  by  virtue 
of  your  superior  combination,  you  swelled  out  your 
chest,  talked  about  efficiency  and  enterprise,  and  sent 
your  wife  to  Europe  on  the  profits  you  had  fgained  by 
eating  up  the  three  small  groceries.     It  is  dog  eat  dog, 
and  you  ate  them  up.     But,  on  the  other  hand,  you 
are  being  eaten  up  in  turn  by  the  bigger  dogs,  wherefore 
you  squeal.     And  what  I  say  to  you  is  true  of  all  of  you 
at  this  table.    You  are  all  squealing.   You  are  all  play- 
ing the  losing  game,  and  you  are  all  squealing  about  it. 
"But  when  you  squeal  you  don't  state  the  situation 


130  THE  IRON  HEEL 

flatly,  as  I  have  stated  it.  You  don't  say  that  you  like 
to  squeeze  profits  out  of  others,  and  that  you  are  mak- 
ing all  the  row  because  others  are  squeezing  your  profits 
out  of  you.  No,  you  are  too  cunning  for  that.  You 
say  something  else.  You  make  small-capitalist  political 
speeches  such  as  Mr.  Calvin  made.  What  did  he  say? 
Here  are  a  few  of  his  phrases  I  caught:  'Our  original 
principles  are  all  right/  'What  this  country  requires 
is  a  return  to  fundamental  American  methods  —  free 
opportunity  for  all/  'The  spirit  of  liberty  in  which 
this  nation  was  born/  'Let  us  return  to  the  principles 
of  our  forefathers.' 

"When  he  says  'free  opportunity  for  all/  he  means 
free  opportunity  to  squeeze  profits,  which  freedom  of 
opportunity  is  now  denied  .him  by  the  great  trusts. 
And  the  absurd  thing  about  it  is  that  you  have  repeated 
these  phrases  so  often  that  you  believe  them.  You 
want  opportunity  to  plunder  your  fellow-men  in  your 
own  small  way,  but  you  hypnotize  yourselves  into 
thinking  you  want  freedom.  You  are  piggish  and  ac- 
quisitive, but  the  magic  of  your  phrases  leads  you  to 
believe  that  you  are  patriotic.  Your  desire  for  profits, 
which  is  sheer  selfishness,  you  metamorphose  into 
altruistic  solicitude  for  suffering  humanity.  Come  on 
now,  right  here  amongst  ourselves,  and  be  honest  for 
once.  Look  the  matter  in  the  face  and  state  it  in  direct 
terms." 

There  were  flushed  and  angry  faces  at  the  table,  and 


THE  MACHINE  BREAKERS  131 

withal  a  measure  of  awe.  They  were  a  little  frightened 
at  this  smooth-faced  young  fellow,  and  the  swing  and 
smash  of  his  words,  and  his  dreadful  trait  of  calling  a 
spade  a  spade.     Mr.  Calvin  promptly  replied. 

"And  why  not?"  he  demanded.  "Why  can  we  not 
return  to  the  ways  of  our  fathers  when  this  republic 
was  founded  ?  You  have  spoken  much  truth,  Mr.  Ever- 
hard,  unpalatable  though  it  has  been.  But  here 
amongst  ourselves  let  us  speak  out.  Let  us  throw  off  all 
disguise  and  accept  the  truth  as  Mr.  Everhard  has  flatly 
stated  it.  It  is  true  that  we  smaller  capitalists  are 
after  profits,  and  that  the  trusts  are  taking  our  profits 
away  from  us.  It  is  true  that  we  want  to  destroy  the 
trusts  in  order  that  our  profits  may  remain  to  us.  And 
why  can  we  not  do  it?     Why  not?     I  say,  why  not?" 

"Ah,  now  we  come  to  the  gist  of  the  matter,"  Ernest 
said  with  a  pleased  expression.  "I'll  try  to  tell  you 
why  not,  though  the  telling  will  be  rather  hard.  You 
see,  you  fellows  have  studied  business,  in  a  small  way, 
but  you  have  not  studied  social  evolution  at  all.  You 
are  in  the  midst  of  a  transition  stage  now  in  economic 
evolution,  but  you  do  not  understand  it,  and  that's 
what  causes  all  the  confusion.  Why  cannot  you 
return?  Because  you  can't.  You  can  no  more  make 
water  run  up  hill  than  can  you  cause  the  tide  of  economic 
evolution  to  flow  back  in  its  channel  along  the  way  it 
came.  Joshua  made  the  sun  stand  still  upon  Gibeon, 
but  you  would  outdo  Joshua.     You  would  make  the 


132  THE  IRON  HEEL 

sun  go  backward  in  the  sky.  You  would  have  time 
retrace  its  steps  from  noon  to  morning. 

"In  the  face  of  labor-saving  machinery,  of  organized 
production,  of  the  increased  efficiency  of  combination, 
you  would  set  the  economic  sun  back  a  whole  genera- 
tion or  so  to  the  time  when  there  were  no  great  capi- 
talists, no  great  machinery,  no  railroads  —  a  time 
when  a  host  of  little  capitalists  warred  with  each  other 
in  economic  anarchy,  and  when  production  was  primi- 
tive, wasteful,  unorganized,  and  costly.  Believe  me, 
Joshua's  task  was  easier,  and  he  had  Jehovah  to  help 
him.  But  God  has  forsaken  you  small  capitalists. 
The  sun  of  the  small  capitalists  is  setting.  It  will  never 
rise  again.  Nor  is  it  in  your  power  even  to  make  it 
stand  still.  You  are  perishing,  and  you  are  doomed  to 
perish  utterly  from  the  face  of  society. 

"This  is  the  fiat  of  evolution.  It  is  the  word  of  God. 
Combination  is  stronger  than  competition.  Primitive 
man  was  a  puny  creature  hiding  in  the  crevices  of  the 
rocks.  He  combined  and  made  war  upon  his  carniv- 
orous enemies.  They  were  competitive  beasts.  Primi- 
tive man  was  a  combinative  beast,  and  because  of  it  he 
rose  to  primacy  over  all  the  animals.  And  man  has 
been  achieving  greater  and  greater  combinations  ever 
since.  It  is  combination  versus  competition,  a  thou- 
sand centuries  long  struggle,  in  which  competition  has 
always  been  worsted.  Whoso  enlists  on  the  side  of 
competition  perishes." 


THE  MACHINE  BREAKERS  133 

"But  the  trusts  themselves  arose  out  of  competition/' 
Mr.  Calvin  interrupted. 

"Very  true/'  Ernest  answered.  "And  the  trusts 
themselves  destroyed  competition.  That,  by  your  own 
word,  is  why  you  are  no  longer  in  the  dairy  business." 

The  first  laughter  of  the  evening  went  around  the 
table,  and  even  Mr.  Calvin  joined  in  the  laugh  against 
himself. 

"And  now,  while  we  are  on  the  trusts,"  Ernest  went 
on,  "let  us  settle  a  few  things.     I  shall  make  certain 
statements,  and  if  you  disagree  with  them,  speak  up. 
Silence  will  mean  agreement.     Is  it  not  true  that  a 
machine-loom  will  weave  more  cloth  and  weave  more 
cheaply  than  a  hand-loom?"     He  paused,  but  nobody 
spoke  up.     "Is  it  not  then  highly  irrational  to  break 
the  machine-loom  and  go  back  to  the  clumsy  and  more 
costly  hand-loom  method  of  weaving  ? ' '     Heads  nodded 
in  acquiescence.     "Is  it  not  true  that  that  combination 
known  as  a  trust  produces  more  efficiently  and  cheaply 
than    can    a    thousand    competing   small    concerns?" 
Still  no  one  objected.     "Then  is  it  not  irrational  to 
destroy  that  cheap  and  efficient  combination?" 

No  one  answered  for  a  long  time.  Then  Mr.  Kowalt 
spoke. 

"What  are  we  to  do,  then?"  he  demanded.  "To 
destroy  the  trusts  is  the  only  way  we  can  see  to  escape 
their  domination." 

Ernest  was  all  fire  and  aliveness  on  the  instant. 


134  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"I'll  show  you  another  way!"  he  eried.  "Let  us 
not  destroy  those  wonderful  machines  that  produce 
efficiently  and  cheaply.  »Let  us  control  them.  Let  us 
profit  by  their  efficiency  and  cheapness.  Let  us  run 
them  for  ourselves.  Let  us  oust  the  present  owners  of 
the  wonderful  machines,  and  let  us  own  the  wonderful 
machines  ourselves.  That,  gentlemen,  is  socialism,  a 
greater  combination  than  the  trusts,  a  greater  economic 
and  social  combination  than  any  that  has  as  yet  ap- 
peared on  the  planet.  It  is  in  line  with  evolution. 
We  meet  combination  with  greater  combination.  It 
is  the  winning  side.  Come  on  over  with  us  socialists 
and  play  on  the  winning  side." 

Here  arose  dissent.  There  was  a  shaking  of  heads, 
and  mutterings  arose. 

"All  right,  then,  you  prefer  to  be  anachronisms," 
Ernest  laughed.  "You  prefer  to  play  atavistic  roles. 
You  are  doomed  to  perish  as  all  atavisms  perish.  Have 
you  ever  asked  what  will  happen  to  you  when  greater 
combinations  than  even  the  present  trusts  arise? 
Have  you  ever  considered  where  you  will  stand  when 
the  great  trusts  themselves  combine  into  the  com- 
bination of  combinations  —  into  the  social,  economic, 
and  political  trust?" 

He  turned  abruptly  and  irrelevantly  upon  Mr.  Calvin. 

"Tell  me,"  Ernest  said,  "if  this  is  not  true.  You  are 
compelled  to  form  a  new  political  party  because  the 
old  parties  are  in  the  hands  of  the  trusts.     The  chief 


THE  MACHINE  BREAKERS  135 

obstacle  to  your  Grange  propaganda  is  the  trusts. 
Behind  every  obstacle  you  encounter,  every  blow  that 
smites  you,  every  defeat  that  you  receive,  is  the  hand 
of  the  trusts.  Is  this  not  so?  Tell  me." 
Mr.  Calvin  sat  in  uncomfortable  silence. 
"Go  ahead,"  Ernest  encouraged. 
"It  is  true,"  Mr.  Calvin  confessed.  "We  captured  the 
state  legislature  of  Oregon  and  put  through  splendid 
protective  legislation,  and  it  was  vetoed  by  the  gov- 
ernor, who  was  a  creature  of  the  trusts.  We  elected  a 
governor  of  Colorado,  and  the  legislature  refused  to 
permit  him  to  take  office.  Twice  we  have  passed  a 
national  income  tax,  and  each  time  the  supreme 
court  smashed  it  as  unconstitutional.  The  courts  are 
in  the  hands  of  the  trusts.  We,  the  people,  do  not  pay 
our  judges  sufficiently.     But  there  will  come  a  time  —  " 

"When  the  combination  of  the  trusts  will  control 
all  legislation,  when  the  combination  of  the  trusts  will 
itself  be  the  government,"  Ernest  interrupted. 

"Never  !  never  !"  were  the  cries  that  arose.  Every- 
body was  excited  and  belligerent. 

"Tell  me,"  Ernest  demanded,  "what  will  you  do 
when  such  a  time  comes?" 

"We  will  rise  in  our  strength !"  Mr.  Asmunsen  cried, 
and  many  voices  backed  his  decision. 

"That  will  be  civil  war,"  Ernest  warned  them. 

"So  be  it,  civil  war,"  was  Mr.  Asmunsen's  answer, 
with  the  cries  of  all  the  men  at  the  table  behind  him. 


136  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"We  have  not  forgotten  the  deeds  of  our  forefathers. 
For  our  liberties  we  are  ready  to  fight  and  die." 

Ernest  smiled. 

"Do  not  forget,"  he  said,  "that  we  had  tacitly- 
agreed  that  liberty  in  your  case,  gentlemen,  means 
liberty  to  squeeze  profits  out  of  others." 

The  table  was  angry,  now,  fighting  angry ;  but  Ernest 
controlled  the  tumult  and  made  himself  heard. 

"One  more  question.  When  you  rise  in  your 
strength,  remembei,  the  reason  for  your  rising  will  be 
that  the  government  is  in  the  hands  of  the  trusts. 
Therefore,  against  your  strength  the  government  will 
turn  the  regular  army,  the  navy,  the  militia,  the  police 
—  in  short,  the  whole  organized  war  machinery  of  the 
United  States.     Where  will  your  strength  be  then?" 

Dismay  sat  on  their  faces,  and  before  they  could 
recover,  Ernest  struck  again. 

"Do  you  remember,  not  so  long  ago,  when  our  regular 
army  was  only  fifty  thousand  ?  Year  by  year  it  has  been 
increased  until  to-day  it  is  three  hundred  thousand." 

Again  he  struck. 

"Nor  is  that  all.  While  you  diligently  pursued  that 
favorite  phantom  of  yours,  called  profits,  and  moralized 
about  that  favorite  fetich  of  yours,  called  competition, 
even  greater  and  more  direful  things  have  been  accom- 
plished by  combination.     There  is  the  militia." 

"It  is  our  strength!"  cried  Mr.  Kowalt.  "With  it 
we  would  repel  the  invasion  of  the  regular  army." 


THE  MACHINE  BREAKERS  137 

"You  would  go  into  the  militia  yourself,"  was 
Ernest's  retort,  "and  be  sent  to  Maine,  or  Florida,  or 
the  Philippines,  or  anywhere  else,  to  drown  in  blood 
your  own  comrades  civil-warring  for  their  liberties. 
While  from  Kansas,  or  Wisconsin,  or  any  other  state, 
your  own  comrades  would  go  into  the  militia  and 
come  here  to  California  to  drown  in  blood  your  own 
civil-warring." 

Now  they  were  really  shocked,  and  they  sat  wordless, 
until  Mr.  Owen  murmured: 

"We  would  not  go  into  the  militia.  That  would 
settle  it.     We  would  not  be  so  foolish." 

Ernest  laughed  outright. 

"You  do  not  understand  the  combination  that  has 
been  effected.  You  could  not  help  yourself.  You 
would  be  drafted  into  the  militia." 

"There  is  such  a  thing  as  civil  law,"  Mr.  Owen 
insisted. 

"Not  when  the  government  suspends  civil  law.  In 
that  day  when  you  speak  of  rising  in  your  strength, 
your  strength  would  be  turned  against  yourself.  Into 
the  militia  you  would  go,  willy-nilly.  Habeas  corpus,  I 
heard  some  one  mutter  just  now.  Instead  of  habeas 
corpus  jrou  would  get  post  mortems.  If  you  refused 
to  go  into  the  militia,  or  to  obey  after  you  were  in,  you 
would  be  tried  by  drumhead  court  martial  and  shot 
down  like  dogs.     It  is  the  law." 

"It  is  not  the  law!"  Mr.  Calvin  asserted  positively. 


138  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"There  is  no  such  law.  Young  man,  you  have  dreamed 
all  this.  Why,  you  spoke  of  sending  the  militia  to  the 
Philippines.  That  is  unconstitutional.  The  Consti- 
tution especially  states  that  the  militia  cannot  be  sent 
out  of  the  country." 

"What's  the  Constitution  got  to  do  with  it?"  Ernest 
demanded.  "The  courts  interpret  the  Constitution,  and 
the  courts,  as  Mr.  Asmunsen  agreed,  are  the  creatures  of 
the  trusts.  Besides,  it  is  as  I  have  said,  the  law.  It  has 
been  the  law  for  years,  for  nine  years,  gentlemen." 

"That  we  can  be  drafted  into  the  militia?"  Mr.  Cal- 
vin asked  incredulously.  "That  they  can  shoot  us  by 
drumhead  court  martial  if  we  refuse?"  * 

"Yes,"  Ernest  answered,  "precisely  that." 

"How  is  it  that  we  have  never  heard  of  this  law?" 
my  father  asked,  and  I  could  see  that  it  was  likewise 
new  to  him. 

"For  two  reasons,"  Ernest  said.  "First,  there  has 
been  no  need  to  enforce  it.  If  there  had,  you'd  have 
heard  of  it  soon  enough.  And  secondly,  the  law  was 
rushed  through  Congress  and  the  Senate  secretly, 
with  practically  no  discussion.  Of  course,  the  news- 
papers made  no  mention  of  it.  But  we  socialists  knew 
about  it.  We  published  it  in  our  papers.  But  you 
never  read  our  papers." 

"I  still  insist  you  are  dreaming,"  Mr. Calvin  said  stub- 
bornly.   "The  country  would  never  have  permitted  it." 

"But  the  country  did  permit  it,"  Ernest  replied. 


THE  MACHINE  BREAKERS  139 

"And  as  for  my  dreaming — "  he  put  his  hand  in  his 
pocket  and  drew  out  a  small  pamphlet  —  "tell  me  if 
this  looks  like  dream-stuff." 

He  opened  it  and  began  to  read: 

"'  Section  One,  be  it  enacted,  and  so  forth  and  so 
forth,  that  the  militia  shall  consist  of  every  able-bodied 
male  citizen  of  the  respective  states,  territories,  and 
District  of  Columbia,  who  is  more  than  eighteen  and 
less  than  forty-five  years  of  age.' 

"'Section  Seven,  that  any  officer  or  enlisted  man'  — 
remember  Section  One,  gentlemen,  you  are  all  enlisted 
men  —  'that  any  enlisted  man  of  the  militia  who  shall 
refuse  or  neglect  to  present  himself  to  such  mustering 
officer  upon  being  called  forth  as  herein  prescribed,  shall 
be  subject  to  trial  by  court  martial,  and  shall  be  pun- 
ished as  such  court  martial  shall  direct.' 

"'Section  Eight,  that  courts  martial,  for  the  trial 
of  officers  or  men  of  the  militia,  shall  be  composed  of 
militia  officers  only.' 

"'Section  Nine,  that  the  militia,  when  called  into  the 
actual  service  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  subject 
to  the  same  rules  and  articles  of  war  as  the  regular 
troops  of  the  United  States.' 

"There  you  are,  gentlemen,  American  citizens, 
and  fellow-militiamen.  Nine  years  ago  we  socialists 
thought  that  law  was  aimed  against  labor.  But  it 
would  seem  that  it  was  aimed  against  you,  too.  Con- 
gressman Wiley,  in  the  brief  discussion  that  was  per- 


140  THE  IRON  HEEL 

mitted,  said  that  the  bill  'provided  for  a  reserve  force 
to  take  the  mob  by  the  throat' — you're  the  mob, 
gentlemen  —  'and  protect  at  all  hazards  life,  liberty, 
and  property.'  And  in  the  time  to  come,  when  you 
rise  in  your  strength,  remember  that  you  will  be  rising 
against  the  property  of  the  trusts,  and  the  liberty  of  the 
trusts,  according  to  the  law,  to  squeeze  you.  Your 
teeth  are  pulled,  gentlemen.  Your  claws  are  trimmed. 
In  the  day  you  rise  in  your  strength,  toothless  and 
clawless,  you  will  be  as  harmless  as  an  army  of  clams." 

"I  don't  believe  it!"  Kowalt  cried.  "There  is  no 
such  law.     It  is  a  canard  got  up  by  you  socialists." 

"This  bill  was  introduced  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives on  July  30,  1902,"  was  the  reply.  "It  was 
introduced  by  Representative  Dick  of  Ohio.  It  was 
rushed  through.  It  was  passed  unanimously  by  the 
Senate  on  January  14,  1903.  And  just  seven  days 
afterward  was  approved  by  the  President  of  the 
United  States." * 

1  Everhard  was  right  in  the  essential  particulars,  though  his  date 
of  the  introduction  of  the  bill  is  in  error.  The  bill  was  introduced  on 
June  30,  and  not  on  July  30.  The  Congressional  Record  is  here  in 
Ardis,  and  a  reference  to  it  shows  mention  of  the  bill  on  the  following 
dates:  June  30,  December  9,  15,  16,  and  17,  1902,  and  January  7  and 
14,  1903.  The  ignorance  evidenced  by  the  business  men  at  the  dinner 
was  nothing  unusual.  Very  few  people  knew  of  the  existence  of  this 
law.  E.  Untermann,  a  revolutionist,  in  July,  1903,  published  a  pam- 
phlet at  Girard,  Kansas,  on  the  "Militia  Bill."  This  pamphlet  had  a 
small  circulation  among  workingmen ;  but  already  had  the  segregation 
of  classes  proceeded  so  far,  that  the  members  of  the  middle  class  never 
heard  of  the  pamphlet  at  all,  and  so  remained  in  ignorance  of  the 
law. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   MATHEMATICS   OF   A  DREAM 

In  the  midst  of  the  consternation  his  revelation  had 
produced,  Ernest  began  again  to  speak. 

"  You  have  said,  a  dozen  of  you  to-night,  that  social- 
ism is  impossible.  You  have  asserted  the  impossible, 
now  let  me  demonstrate  the  inevitable.  Not  only  is  it 
inevitable  that  you  small  capitalists  shall  pass  away, 
but  it  is  inevitable  that  the  large  capitalists,  and  the 
trusts  also,  shall  pass  away.  Remember,  the  tide  of 
evolution  never  flows  backward.  It  flows  on  and  on, 
and  it  flows  from  competition  to  combination,  and  from 
little  combination  to  large  combination,  and  from  large 
combination  to  colossal  combination,  and  it  flows  on  to 
socialism,  which  is  the  most  colossal  combination  of  all. 

"You  tell  me  that  I  dream.  Very  good.  I'll  give 
you  the  mathematics  of  my  dream;  and  here,  in  ad- 
vance, I  challenge  you  to  show  that  my  mathematics  are 
wrong.  I  shall  develop  the  inevitability  of  the  break- 
down of  the  capitalist  system,  and  I  shall  demonstrate 
mathematically  why  it  must  break  down.  Here  goes, 
and  bear  with  me  if  at  first  I  seem  irrelevant. 

"Let  us,  first  of  all,  investigate  a  particular  industrial 
process,  and  whenever  I  state  something  with  which 

141 


142  THE  IRON  HEEL 

you  disagree,  please  interrupt  me.  Here  is  a  shoe 
factory.  This  factory  takes  leather  and  makes  it  into 
shoes.  Here  is  one  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  leather. 
It  goes  through  the  factory  and  comes  out  in  the  form 
of  shoes,  worth,  let  us  say,  two  hundred  dollars.  What 
has  happened?  One  hundred  dollars  has  been  added 
to  the  value  of  the  leather.  How  was  it  added  ?  Let 
us  see. 

"Capital  and  labor  added  this  value  of  one  hundred 
dollars.  Capital  furnished  the  factory,  the  machines, 
and  paid  all  the  expenses.  Labor  furnished  labor. 
By  the  joint  effort  of  capital  and  labor  one  hundred 
dollars  of  value  was  added.     Are  you  all  agreed  so  far  ?  " 

Heads  nodded  around  the  table  in  affirmation. 

"  Labor  and  capital  having  produced  this  one  hundred 
dollars,  now  proceed  to  divide  it.  The  statistics  of  this 
division  are  fractional ;  so  let  us,  for  the  sake  of  con- 
venience, make  them  roughly  approximate.  Capital 
takes  fifty  dollars  as  its  share,  and  labor  gets  in  wages 
fifty  dollars  as  its  share.  We  will  not  enter  into  the 
squabbling  over  the  division.1  No  matter  how  much 
squabbling  takes  place,  in  one  percentage  or  another  the 

1  Everhard  here  clearly  develops  the  cause  of  all  the  labor  troubles 
of  that  time.  In  the  division  of  the  joint-product,  capital  wanted  all 
it  could  get,  and  labor  wanted  all  it  could  get.  This  quarrel  over 
the  division  was  irreconcilable.  So  long  as  the  system  of  capitalistic 
production  existed,  labor  and  capital  continued  to  quarrel  over  the 
division  of  the  joint-product.  It  is  a  ludicrous  spectacle  to  us,  but 
we  must  not  forget  that  we  have  seven  centuries'  advantage  over  those 
that  lived  in  that  time. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  A  DREAM  143 

division  is  arranged.  And  take  notice  here,  t&at  what 
is  true  of  this  particular  industrial  process  is  true  of  all 
industrial  processes.     Am  I  right?" 

Again  the  whole  table  agreed  with  Ernest. 

"Now,  suppose  labor,  having  received  its  fifty  dollars, 
wanted  to  buy  back  shoes.  It  could  only  buy  back 
fifty  dollars'  worth.     That's  clear,  isn't  it? 

"And  now  we  shift  from  this  particular  process  to  the 
sum  total  of  all  industrial  processes  in  the  United  States, 
which  includes  the  leather  itself,  raw  material,  trans- 
portation, selling,  everything.  We  will  say,  for  the 
sake  of  round  figures,  that  the  total  production  of 
wealth  in  the  United  States  in  one  year  is  four  billion 
dollars.  Then  labor  has  received  in  wages,  during  the 
same  period,  two  billion  dollars.  Four  billion  dollars 
has  been  produced.  How  much  of  this  can  labor  buy 
back?  Two  billions.  There  is  no  discussion  of  this, 
I  am  sure.  For  that  matter,  my  percentages  are  mild. 
Because  of  a  thousand  capitalistic  devices,  labor  cannot 
buy  back  even  half  of  the  total  product. 

"But  to  return.  We  will  say  labor  buys  back  two 
billions.  Then  it  stands  to  reason  that  labor  can  con- 
sume only  two  billions.  There  are  still  two  billions  to 
be  accounted  for,  which  labor  cannot  buy  back  and 
consume." 

"Labor  does  not  consume  its  two  billions,  even,"  Mr. 
Kowalt  spoke  up.  "If  it  did,  it  would  not  have  any 
deposits  in  the  savings  banks." 


144  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"  Labor's  deposits  in  the  savings  banks  are  only  a  sort 
of  reserve  fund  that  is  consumed  as  fast  as  it  accumu- 
lates. These  deposits  are  saved  for  old  age,  for  sickness 
and  accident,  and  for  funeral  expenses.  The  savings 
bank  deposit  is  simply  a  piece  of  the  loaf  put  back  on 
the  shelf  to  be  eaten  next  day.  No,  labor  consumes  all 
of  the  total  product  that  its  wages  will  buy  back. 

"Two  billions  are  left  to  capital.  After  it  has  paid 
its  expenses,  does  it  consume  the  remainder?  Does 
capital  consume  all  of  its  two  billions?" 

Ernest  stopped  and  put  the  question  point  blank  to  a 
number  of  the  men.     They  shook  their  heads. 

"I  don't  know,"  one  of  them  frankly  said. 

"Of  course  you  do,"  Ernest  went  on.  "Stop  and 
think  a  moment.  If  capital  consumed  its  share,  the 
sum  total  of  capital  could  not  increase.  It  would  re- 
main constant.  If  you  will  look  at  the  economic  his- 
tor}^  of  the  United  States,  you  will  see  that  the  sum  total 
of  capital  has  continually  increased.  Therefore  cap- 
ital does  not  consume  its  share.  Do  you  remember 
when  England  owned  so  much  of  our  railroad  bonds? 
As  the  years  went  by,  we  bought  back  those  bonds. 
What  does  that  mean?  That  part  of  capital's  uncon- 
sumed  share  bought  back  the  bonds.  What  is  the 
meaning  of  the  fact  that  to-day  the  capitalists  of  the 
United  States  own  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  millions 
of  dollars  of  Mexican  bonds,  Russian  bonds,  Italian 
bonds,   Grecian  bonds?    The  meaning  is  that  those 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  A  DREAM  145 

hundreds  and  hundreds  of  millions  were  part  of  capital's 
share  which  capital  did  not  consume.  Furthermore, 
from  the  very  beginning  of  the  capitalist  system,  capi- 
tal has  never  consumed  all  of  its  share. 

"And  now  we  come  to  the  point.  Four  billion  dol- 
lars of  wealth  is  produced  in  one  year  in  the  United 
States.  Labor  buys  back  and  consumes  two  billions. 
Capital  does  not  consume  the  remaining  two  billions. 
There  is  a  large  balance  left  over  unconsumed.  What 
is  done  with  this  balance  ?  What  can  be  done  with  it  ? 
Labor  cannot  consume  any  of  it,  for  labor  has  already 
spent  all  its  wages.  Capital  will  not  consume  this 
balance,  because,  already,  according  to  its  nature,  it 
has  consumed  all  it  can.  And  still  remains  the  balance. 
What  can  be  done  with  it  ?     What  is  done  with  it  ?  " 

"It  is  sold  abroad,"  Mr.  Kowalt  volunteered. 

"The  very  thing,"  Ernest  agreed.  "Because  of  this 
balance  arises  our  need  for  a  foreign  market.  This  is 
sold  abroad.  It  has  to  be  sold  abroad.  There  is  no 
other  way  of  getting  rid  of  it.  And  that  uncon- 
sumed surplus,  sold  abroad,  becomes  what  we  call 
our  favorable  balance  of  trade.  Are  we  all  agreed 
so  far?" 

"Surely  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  elaborate  these 
ABC's  of  commerce,"  Mr.  Calvin  said  tartly.  "We 
all  understand  them." 

"And  it  is  by  these  ABC's  I  have  so  carefully 
elaborated  that  I  shall  confound  you,"  Ernest  retorted. 


146  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"There's  the  beauty  of  it.  And  I'm  going  to  confound 
you  with  them  right  now.     Here  goes. 

"The  United  States  is  a  capitalist  country  that  has 
developed  its  resources.  According  to  its  capitalist 
system  of  industry,  it  has  an  unconsumed  surplus  that 
must  be  got  rid  of,  and  that  must  be  got  rid  of  abroad.1 
What  is  true  of  the  United  States  is  true  of  every  other 
capitalist  country  with  developed  resources.  Every 
one  of  such  countries  has  an  unconsumed  surplus. 
Don't  forget  that  they  have  already  traded  with  one 
another,  and  that  these  surpluses  yet  remain.  Labor 
in  all  these  countries  has  spent  its  wages,  and  cannot 
buy  any  of  the  surpluses.  Capital  in  all  these  countries 
has  already  consumed  all  it  is  able  according  to  its 
nature.  And  still  remain  the  surpluses.  They  cannot 
dispose  of  these  surpluses  to  one  another.  How  are  they 
going  to  get  rid  of  them?" 

"Sell  them  to  countries  with  undeveloped  resources," 
Mr.  Kowalt  suggested. 

"The  very  thing.     You  see,  my  argument  is  so  clear 

1  Theodore  Roosevelt,  President  of  the  United  States  a  few  years 
prior  to  this  time,  made  the  following  public  declaration :  "  A  more 
liberal  and  extensive  reciprocity  in  the  purchase  and  sale  of  commodities 
is  necessary,  so  that  the  overproduction  of  the  United  States  can  be  satis- 
factorily disposed  of  to  foreign  countries."  Of  course,  this  overproduc- 
tion he  mentions  was  the  profits  of  the  capitalist  system  over  and 
beyond  the  consuming  power  of  the  capitalists.  It  was  at  this  time 
that  Senator  Mark  Hanna  said :  "  The  production  of  wealth  in  the 
United  States  is  one-third  larger  annually  than  its  consumption."  Also 
a  fellow-Senator,  Chauncey  Depew,  said:  "The  American  people 
produce  annually  two  billions  more  wealth  than  they  consume." 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  A  DREAM  147 

and  simple  that  in  your  own  minds  you  carry  it  on  for 
me.  And  now  for  the  next  step.  Suppose  the  United 
States  disposes  of  its  surplus  to  a  country  with  unde- 
veloped resources  like,  say,  Brazil.  Remember  this 
surplus  is  over  and  above  trade,  which  articles  of  trade 
have  been  consumed.  What,  then,  does  the  United 
States  get  in  return  from  Brazil?" 

"Gold/'  said  Mr.  Kowalt. 

"But  there  is  only  so  much  gold,  and  not  much  of  it, 
in  the  world,"  Ernest  objected. 

"Gold  in  the  form  of  securities  and  bonds  and  so 
forth,"  Mr.  Kowalt  amended. 

"Now  you've  struck  it,"  Ernest  said.  "From  Brazil 
the  United  States,  in  return  for  her  surplus,  gets  bonds 
and  securities.  And  what  does  that  mean  ?  It  means 
that  the  United  States  is  coming  to  own  railroads  in 
Brazil,  factories,  mines,  and  lands  in  Brazil.  And 
what  is  the  meaning  of  that  in  turn?" 

Mr.  Kowalt  pondered  and  shook  his  head. 

"I'll  tell  you,"  Ernest  continued.  "It  means  that 
the  resources  of  Brazil  are  being  developed.  And  now, 
the  next  point.  When  Brazil,  under  the  capitalist 
system,  has  developed  her  resources,  she  will  herself 
have  an  unconsumed  surplus.  Can  she  get  rid  cf  this 
surplus  to  the  United  States  ?  No,  because  the  United 
States  has  herself  a  surplus.  Can  the  United  States  do 
what  she  previously  did  —  get  rid  of  her  surplus  to 
Brazil  ?     No,  for  Brazil  now  has  a  surplus,  too. 


148  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"What  happens?  The  United  States  and  Brazil 
must  both  seek  out  other  countries  with  undeveloped 
resources,  in  order  to  unload  the  surpluses  on  them. 
But  by  the  very  process  of  unloading  the  surpluses, 
the  resources  of  those  countries  are  in  turn  developed. 
Soon  they  have  surpluses,  and  are  seeking  other  coun- 
tries on  which  to  unload.  Now,  gentlemen,  follow  me. 
The  planet  is  only  so  large.  There  are  only  so  many 
countries  in  the  world.  What  will  happen  when  every 
country  in  the  world,  down  to  the  smallest  and  last, 
with  a  surplus  in  its  hands,  stands  confronting  every 
other  country  with  surpluses  in  their  hands?" 

He  paused  and  regarded  his  listeners.  The  bepuzzle- 
ment  in  their  faces  was  delicious.  Also,  there  was  awe 
in  their  faces.  Out  of  abstractions  Ernest  had  conjured 
a  vision  and  made  them  see  it.  They  were  seeing 
it  then,  as  they  sat  there,  and  they  were  frightened 
by  it. 

"We  started  with  ABC,  Mr.  Calvin,"  Ernest  said 
slyly.  "I  have  now  given  you  the  rest  of  the  alphabet. 
It  is  very  simple.  That  is  the  beauty  of  it.  You 
surely  have  the  answer  forthcoming.  What,  then, 
when  every  country  in  the  world  has  an  unconsumed 
surplus?  Where  will  your  capitalist  system  be 
then?" 

But  Mr.  Calvin  shook  a  troubled  head.  He  was  ob- 
viously questing  back  through  Ernest's  reasoning  in 
search  of  an  error. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  A  DREAM  149 

"Let  me  briefly  go  over  the  ground  with  you  again," 
Ernest  said.  "We  began  with  a  particular  industrial 
process,  the  shoe  factory.  We  found  that  the  division 
of  the  joint  product  that  took  place  there  was  similar 
to  the  division  that  took  place  in  the  sum  total  of  all 
industrial  processes.  We  found  that  labor  could  buy 
back  with  its  wages  only  so  much  of  the  product,  and 
that  capital  did  not  consume  all  of  the  remainder  of 
the  product.  We  found  that  when  labor  had  con- 
sumed to  the  full  extent  of  its  wages,  and  when 
capital  had  consumed  all  it  wanted,  there  was 
still  left  an  unconsumed  surplus.  We  agreed  that 
this  surplus  could  only  be  disposed  of  abroad.  We 
agreed,  also,  that  the  effect  of  unloading  this  sur- 
plus on  another  country  would  be  to  develop  the 
resources  of  that  country,  and  that  in  a  short  time 
that  country  would  have  an  unconsumed  surplus. 
We  extended  this  process  to  all  the  countries  on  the 
planet,  till  every  country  was  producing  every  year, 
and  every  day,  an  unconsumed  surplus,  which  it 
could  dispose  of  to  no  other  country.  And  now  I 
ask  you  again,  what  are  we  going  to  do  with  those 
surpluses?" 

Still  no  one  answered. 

"Mr.  Calvin?"  Ernest  queried. 

"It  beats  me,"  Mr.  Calvin  confessed. 

"I  never  dreamed  of  such  a  thing,"  Mr.  Asmunsen 
said.     "And  yet  it  does  seem  clear  as  print." 


150  THE  IRON  HEEL 

It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  heard  Karl  Marx's  ' 
doctrine  of  surplus  value  elaborated,  and  Ernest  had 
done  it  so  simply  that  I,  too,  sat  puzzled  and  dum- 
founded. 

"'I'll  tell  you  a  way  to  get  rid  of  the  surplus,"  Ernest 
said.  "Throw  it  into  the  sea.  Throw  every  year  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  shoes  and  wheat 
and  clothing  and  all  the  commodities  of  commerce  into 
the  sea.     Won't  that  fix  it?" 

"It  will  certainly  fix  it,"  Mr.  Calvin  answered.  "But 
it  is  absurd  for  you  to  talk  that  way." 

Ernest  was  upon  him  like  a  flash. 

"Is  it  a  bit  more  absurd  than  what  you  advocate, 
you  machine-breaker,  returning  to  the  antediluvian 
ways  of  your  forefathers?  What  do  you  propose  in 
order  to  get  rid  of  the  surplus  ?  You  would  escape  the 
problem  of  the  surplus  by  not  producing  any  surplus. 
And  how  do  you  propose  to  avoid  producing  a  surplus  ? 
By  returning  to  a  primitive  method  of  production,  so 
confused  and  disorderly  and  irrational,  so  wasteful  and 
costly,  that  it  will  be  impossible  to  produce  a  surplus." 

Mr.  Calvin  swallowed.  The  point  had  been  driven 
home.     He  swallowed  again  and  cleared  his  throat. 

1  Karl  Marx  —  the  great  intellectual  hero  of  Socialism.  A  German 
Jew  of  the  nineteenth  century.  A  contemporary  cf  John  Stuart  Mill. 
It  seems  incredible  to  us  that  whole  generations  should  have  elapsed 
after  the  enunciation  of  Marx's  economic  discoveries,  in  which  time 
he  was  sneered  at  by  the  world's  accepted  thinkers  and  scholars. 
Because  of  his  discoveries  he  was  banished  from  his  native  country, 
and  he  died  an  exile  in  England. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  A  DREAM  151 

"You  are  right,"  he  said.  "I  stand  convicted.  It 
is  absurd.  But  we've  got  to  do  something.  It  is  a 
case  of  life  and  death  for  us  of  the  middle  class.  We 
refuse  to  perish.  We  elect  to  be  absurd  and  to  return 
to  the  truly  crude  and  wasteful  methods  of  our  fore- 
fathers. We  will  put  back  industry  to  its  pre-trust 
stage.  We  will  break  the  machines.  And  what  are 
you  going  to  do  about  it?" 

"But  you  can't  break  the  machines/'  Ernest  replied. 
"You  cannot  make  the  tide  of  evolution  flow  backward. 
Opposed  to  you  are  two  great  forces,  each  of  which 
is  more  powerful  than  you  of  the  middle  class.  The 
large  capitalists,  the  trusts,  in  short,  will  not  let  you 
turn  back.  They  don't  want  the  machines  destroyed. 
And  greater  than  the  trusts,  and  more  powerful,  is 
labor.  It  will  not  let  you  destroy  the  machines.  The 
ownership  of  the  world,  along  with  the  machines,  lies 
between  the  trusts  and  labor.  That  is  the  battle 
alignment.  Neither  side  wants  the  destruction  of  the 
machines.  But  each  side  wants  to  possess  the  machines. 
In  this  battle  the  middle  class  has  no  place.  The  mid- 
dle class  is  a  pygmy  between  two  giants.  Don't  3^ou 
see,  you  poor  perishing  middle  class,  you  are  caught 
between  the  upper  and  nether  millstones,  and  even  now 
has  the  grinding  begun. 

"I  have  demonstrated  to  you  mathematically  the  in- 
evitable breakdown  of  the  capitalist  system.  WThen 
every  country  stands  with  an  unconsumed  and  unsal- 


152  THE  IRON  HEEL 

able  surplus  on  its  hands,  the  capitalist  system  will 
break  down  under  the  terrific  structure  of  profits  that 
it  itself  has  reared.  And  in  that  day  there  won't  be 
any  destruction  of  the  machines.  The  struggle  then 
will  be  for  the  ownership  of  the  machines.  If  labor 
wins,  your  way  will  be  easy.  The  United  States,  and 
the  whole  world  for  that  matter,  will  enter  upon  a 
new  and  tremendous  era.  Instead  of  being  crushed 
by  the  machines,  life  will  be  made  fairer,  and  happier, 
and  nobler  by  them.  You  of  the  destroyed  middle 
class,  along  with  labor — there  will  be  nothing  but  labor 
then ;  so  you,  and  all  the  rest  of  labor,  will  participate 
in  the  equitable  destribution  of  the  products  of  the 
wonderful  machines.  And  we,  all  of  us,  will  make 
new  and  more  wonderful  machines.  And  there  won't 
be  any  unconsumed  surplus,  because  there  won't  be 
any  profits." 

"But  suppose  the  trusts  win  in  this  battle  over  the 
ownership  of  the  machines  and  the  world?"  Mr. 
Kowalt  asked. 

"Then,"  Ernest  answered,  "you,  and  labor,  and  all 
of  us,  will  be  crushed  under  the  iron  heel  of  a  despotism 
as  relentless  and  terrible  as  any  despotism  that  has 
blackened  the  pages  of  the  history  of  man.  That  will 
be  a  good  name  for  that  despotism,  the  Iron  Heel."  * 

There  was  a  long  pause,  and  every  man  at  the  table 
meditated  in  ways  unwonted  and  profound. 

1  The  earliest  known  use  of  that  name  to  designate  the  Oligarchy. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  A  DREAM  153 

"But  this  socialism  of  yours  is  a  dream,"  Mr.  Calvin 
said;  and  repeated,  "a  dream." 

"I'll  show  you  something  that  isn't  a  dream,  then," 
Ernest  answered.  "And  that  something  I  shall  call 
the  Oligarchy.  You  call  it  the  Plutocracy.  We  both 
mean  the  same  thing,  the  large  capitalists  or  the  trusts. 
Let  us  see  where  the  power  lies  to-day.  And  in  order 
to  do  so,  let  us  apportion  society  into  its  class  divisions. 

" There  are  three  big  classes  in  society.  First  comes 
the  Plutocracy,  which  is  composed  of  wealthy  bankers, 
railway  magnates,  corporation  directors,  and  trust 
magnates.  Second,  is  the  middle  class,  your  class, 
gentlemen,  which  is  composed  of  farmers,  merchants, 
small  manufacturers,  and  professional  men.  And  third 
and  last  comes  my  class,  the  proletariat,  which  is 
composed  of  the  wage-workers.1 

"  You  cannot  but  grant  that  the  ownership  of  wealth 
constitutes  essential  power  in  the  United  States  to-day. 
How  is  this  wealth  owned  by  these  three  classes  ?  Here 
are  the  figures.  The  Plutocracy  owns  sixty-seven 
billions  of  wealth.  Of  the  total  number  of  persons 
engaged  in  occupations  in  the  United  States,  only 
nine-tenths  of  one  per  cent  are  from  the  Plutocracy, 


1  This  division  of  society  made  by  Everhard  is  in  accordance  with 
that  made  by  Lucien  Sanial,  one  of  the  statistical  authorities  of  that 
time.  His  calculation  of  the  membership  of  these  divisions  by  occu-, 
pations,  from  the  United  States  Census  of  1900,  is  as  follows:  Pluto- 
cratic class,  250,251;  Middle  class,  8,429,845;  and  Proletariat  class,. 
20,393,137.  y 

3  ^\ 


154  THE  IRON  HEEL 

yet  the  Plutocracy  owns  seventy  per  cent  of  the  total 
wealth.  The  middle  class  owns  twenty-four  billions. 
Twenty-nine  per  cent  of  those  in  occupations  are  from 
the  middle  class,  and  they  own  twenty-five  per  cent  of 
the  total  wealth.  Remains  the  proletariat.  It  owns 
four  billions.  Of  all  persons  in  occupations,  seventy 
per  cent  come  from  the  proletariat;  and  the  prole- 
tariat owns  four  per  cent  of  the  total  wealth.  Where 
does  the  power  lie,  gentlemen?" 

"From  your  own  figures,  we  of  the  middle  class  are 
more  powerful  than  labor,"  Mr.  Asmunsen  remarked. 

"Calling  us  weak  does  not  make  you  stronger  in  the 
face  of  the  strength  of  the  Plutocracy,"  Ernest  re- 
torted. "And  furthermore,  I'm  not  done  with  you. 
There  is  a  greater  strength  than  wealth,  and  it  is  greater 
because  it  cannot  be  taken  away.  Our  strength,  the 
strength  of  the  protelariat,  is  in  our  muscles,  in  our 
hands  to  cast  ballots,  in  our  fingers  to  pull  triggers. 
This  strength  we  cannot  be  stripped  of.  It  is  the  primi- 
tive strength,  it  is  the  strength  that  is  to  life  germane, 
it  is  the  strength  that  is  stronger  than  wealth,  and 
that  wealth  cannot  take  away. 

"But  your  strength  is  detachable.  It  can  be  taken 
away  from  you.  Even  now  the  Plutocracy  is  taking 
it  away  from  you.  In  the  end  it  will  take  it  all  away 
from  you.  And  then  you  will  cease  to  be  the  middle 
class.  You  will  descend  to  us.  You  will  become  prole- 
tarians.    And  the  beauty  of  it  is  that  you  will  then  add 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  A  DREAM  155 

to  our  strength.  We  will  hail  you  brothers,  and  we 
will  fight  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  the  cause  of  humanity. 

"You  see,  labor  has  nothing  concrete  of  which  to  be 
despoiled.  Its  share  of  the  wealth  of  the  country  con- 
sists of  clothes  and  household  furniture,  with  here  and 
there,  in  very  rare  cases,  an  unencumbered  home.  But 
you  have  the  concrete  wealth,  twenty-four  billions  of 
it,  and  the  Plutocracy  will  take  it  away  from  you.  Of 
course,  there  is  the  large  likelihood  that  the  proletariat 
will  take  it  away  first.  Don't  you  see  your  position, 
gentlemen  ?  The  middle  class  is  a  wobbly  little  lamb 
between  a  lion  and  a  tiger.  If  one  doesn't  get  you,  the 
other  will.  And  if  the  Plutocracy  gets  you  first,  why 
it's  only  a  matter  of  time  when  the  Proletariat  gets  the 
Plutocracy. 

"Even  your  present  wealth  is  not  a  true  measure 
of  your  power.  The  strength  of  your  wealth  at  this 
moment  is  only  an  empty  shell.  That  is  why  you  are 
crying  out  your  feeble  little  battle-cry,  'Return  to  the 
ways  of  our  fathers.'  You  are  aware  of  your  impo- 
tency.  You  know  that  your  strength  is  an  empty 
shell.     And  I'll  show  you  the  emptiness  of  it. 

"What  power  have  the  farmers?  Over  fifty  per 
cent  are  thralls  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  they  are 
merely  tenants  or  are  mortgaged.  And  all  of  them 
are  thralls  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  the  trusts  already 
own  or  control  (which  is  the  same  thing  only  better)  — ■ 
own  and  control  all  the  means  of  marketing  the  crops, 


156  THE  IRON  HEEL 

such  as  cold  storage,  railroads,  elevators,  and  steam- 
ship lines.  And,  furthermore,  the  trusts  control  the 
markets.  In  all  this  the  farmers  are  without  power. 
As  regards  their  political  and  governmental  power, 
I'll  take  that  up  later,  along  with  the  political  and 
governmental  power  of  the  whole  middle  class. 

"Day  by  day  the  trusts  squeeze  out  the  farmers  as 
they  squeezed  out  Mr.  Calvin  and  the  rest  of  the  dairy- 
men. And  day  by  day  are  the  merchants  squeezed 
out  in  the  same  way.  Do  you  remember  how,  in  six 
months,  the  Tobacco  Trust  squeezed  out  over  four 
hundred  cigar  stores  in  New  York  City  alone  ?  Where 
are  the  old-time  owners  of  the  coal  fields  ?  You  know 
to-day,  without  my  telling  you,  that  the  Railroad 
Trust  owns  or  controls  the  entire  anthracite  and  bitu- 
minous coal  fields.  Doesn't  the  Standard  Oil  Trust1 
own  a  score  of  the  ocean  lines?  And  does  it  not  also 
control  copper,  to  say  nothing  of  running  a  smelter 
trust  as  a  little  side  enterprise?  There  are  ten  thou- 
sand cities  in  the  United  States  to-night  lighted  by  the 
companies  owned  or  controlled  by  Standard  Oil,  and 
in  as  many  cities  all  the  electric  transportation,  — 
urban,  suburban,  and  interurban,  —  is  in  the  hands  of 
Standard  Oil.  The  small  capitalists  who  were  in  these 
thousands  of  enterprises  are  gone.  You  know  that. 
It's  the  same  way  that  you  are  going. 

"The  small  manufacturer  is  like  the  farmer;    and 

1  Standard  Oil  and  Rockefeller —  see  footnote  on  page  159. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  A  DREAM  157 

small  manufacturers  and  farmers  to-day  are  reduced, 
to  all  intents  and  purposes,  to  feudal  tenure.  For  that 
matter,  the  professional  men  and  the  artists  are  at  this 
present  moment  villeins  in  everything  but  name,  while 
the  politicians  are  henchmen.  Why  do  you,  Mr.  Cal- 
vin, work  all  your  nights  and  days  to  organize  the 
farmers,  along  with  the  rest  of  the  middle  class,  into 
a  new  political  party?  Because  the  politicians  of  the 
old  parties  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  your  atavistic 
ideas;  and  with  your  atavistic  ideas,  they  will  have 
nothing  to  do  because  they  are  what  I  said  they  are, 
henchmen,  retainers  of  the  Plutocracy. 

"I  spoke  of  the  professional  men  and  the  artists  as 
villeins.  What  else  are  they?  One  and  all,  the  pro- 
fessors, the  preachers,  and  the  editors,  hold  their  jobs 
by  serving  the  Plutocracy,  and  their  service  consists 
of  propagating  only  such  ideas  as  are  either  harmless  to 
or  commendatory  of  the  Plutocracy.  Whenever  they 
propagate  ideas  that  menace  the  Plutocracy,  they  lose 
their  jobs,  in  which  case,  if  they  have  not  provided  for 
the  rainy  day,  they  descend  into  the  proletariat  and 
either  perish  or  become  working-class  agitators.  And 
don't  forget  that  it  is  the  press,  the  pulpit,  and  the 
university  that  mould  public  opinion,  set  the  thought- 
pace  of  the  nation.  As  for  the  artists,  they  merely 
pander  to  the  little  less  than  ignoble  tastes  of  the 
Plutocracy. 

"But  after  all,  wealth  in  itself  is  not  the  real  power; 


158  THE  IRON  HEEL 

it  is  the  means  to  power,  and  power  is  governmental. 
Who  controls  the  government  to-day  ?  The  proletariat 
with  its  twenty  millions  engaged  in  occupations  ?  Even 
you  laugh  at  the  idea.  Does  the  middle  class,  with  its 
eight  million  occupied  members?  No  more  than  the 
proletariat.  Who,  then,  controls  the  government?  The 
Plutocracy,  with  its  paltry  quarter  of  a  million  of  occu- 
pied members.  But  this  quarter  of  a  million  does  not 
control  the  government,  though  it  renders  yeoman  ser- 
vice. It  is  the  brain  of  the  Plutocracy  that  controls 
the  government,  and  this  brain  consists  of  seven1 
small  and  powerful  groups  of  men.  And  do  not  for- 
get that  these  groups  are  working  to-day  practically 
in  unison. 

"Let  me  point  out  the  power  of  but  one  of  them,  the 
railroad  group.  It  employs  forty  thousand  lawyers  to 
defeat  the  people  in  the  courts.  It  issues  countless 
thousands  of  free  passes  to  judges,  bankers,  editors, 
ministers,   university  men,   members  of  state  legisla- 

1  Even  as  late  as  1907,  it  was  considered  that  eleven  groups  domi- 
nated the  country,  but  this  number  was  reduced  by  the  amalgamation 
of  the  five  railroad  groups  into  a  supreme  combination  of  all  the  rail- 
roads. These  five  groups  so  amalgamated,  along  with  their  financial 
and  political  allies,  were  (1)  James  J.  Hill  with  his  control  of  the  North- 
west; (2)  the  Pennsylvania  railway  group,  Schiff  financial  manager, 
with  big  banking  firms  of  Philadelphia  and  New  York;  (3)  Harriman, 
with  Frick  for  counsel  and  Odell  as  political  lieutenant,  controlling  the 
central  continental,  Southwestern  and  Southern  Pacific  Coast  lines  of 
transportation;  (4)  the  Gould  family  railway  interests;  and  (5)  Moore, 
Rcid,  and  Leeds,  known  as  the  "  Rock  Island  crowd."  These  strong 
oligarchs  arose  out  of  the  conflict  of  competition  and  travelled  tha 
inevitable  road  toward  combination. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  A  DREAM  159 

tures,  and  of  Congress.  It  maintains  luxurious  lob- 
bies *  at  every  state  capital,  and  at  the  national  capital ; 
and  in  all  the  cities  and  towns  of  the  land  it  employs 
an  immense  army  of  pettifoggers  and  small  politicians 
whose  business  is  to  attend  primaries,  pack  conven- 
tions, get  on  juries,  bribe  judges,  and  in  every  way  to 
work  for  its  interests.2 

"  Gentlemen,  I  have  merely  sketched  the  power  of  one 
of  the  seven  groups  that  constitute  the  brain  of  the 
Plutocracy.3     Your  twenty-four  billions  of  wealth  does 

1  Lobby —  a  peculiar  institution  for  bribing,  bulldozing,  and  cor- 
rupting the  legislators  who  were  supposed  to  represent  the  people's 
interests. 

2  A  decade  before  this  speech  of  Everhard's,  the  New  York  Board 
of  Trade  issued  a  report  from  which  the  following  is  quoted:  "The 
railroads  control  absolutely  the  legislatures  of  a  majority  of  the  states  of 
the  Union;  they  make  and  unmake  United  States  Senators,  congressmen, 
and  governors,  and  are  'practically  dictators  of  the  governmental  'policy 
of  the  United  States." 

3  Rockefeller  began  as  a  member  of  the  proletariat,  and  through 
thrift  and  cunning  succeeded  in  developing  the  first  perfect  trust, 
namely  that  known  as  Standard  Oil.  We  cannot  forbear  giving  the 
following  remarkable  page  from  the  history  of  the  times,  to  show  how 
the  need  for  reinvestment  of  the  Standard  Oil  surplus  crushed  out 
small  capitalists  and  hastened  the  breakdown  of  the  capitalist  system. 
David  Graham  Phillips  was  a  radical  writer  of  the  period,  and  the 
quotation,  by  him,  is  taken  from  a  copy  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post, 
dated  October  4,  1902  a.d.  This  is  the  only  copy  of  this  publication 
that  has  come  down  to  us,  and  yet,  from  its  appearance  and  content, 
we  cannot  but  conclude  that  it  was  one  of  the  popular  periodicals 
with  a  large  circulation.     The  quotation  here  follows: 

"About  ten  years  ago  Rockefeller' s  income  was  given  as  thirty  millions 
by  an  excellent  authority.  He  had  reached  the  limit  of  profitable  invest- 
ment of  profits  in  the  oil  industry.  Here,  then,  were  these  enormous 
sums  in  cash  pouring  in —  more  than  §2,000,000  a  month  for  John 
Davison  Rockefeller  alone.     The  problem  of  reinvestment  became  more 


160  THE  IRON  HEEL 

not  give  you  twenty-five  cents'  worth  of  governmental 
power.     It  is  an  empty  shell,  and  soon  even  the  empty 

serious.  It  became  a  nightmare.  The  oil  income  was  swelling,  swelling, 
and  the  number  of  sound  investments  limited,  even  more  limited  than 
it  is  now.  It  was  through  no  special  eagerness  for  more  gains  that  the 
Rockefellers  began  to  branch  out  from  oil  into  other  things.  They  were 
forced,  swept  on  by  this  inrolling  tide  of  wealth  which  their  monopoly 
magnet  irresistibly  attracted.  They  developed  a  staff  of  investment 
seekers  and  investigators.  It  is  said  that  the  chief  of  this  staff  has  a 
salary  of  8125,000  a  year. 

"  The  first  conspicuous  excursion  and  incursion  of  the  Rockefellers 
was  into  the  railway  field.  By  1895  they  controlled  one- fifth  of  the 
railway  mileage  of  the  country.  What  do  they  own  or,  through  dominant 
ownership,  control  to-day  ?  They  arc  powerful  in  all  the  great  railways 
of  Xew  York,  north,  east,  and  west,  except  one,  where  their  share  is  only 
a  few  millions.  They  are  in  most  of  the  great  railways  radiating  from 
Chicago.  They  dominate  in  several  of  the  systems  that  extend  to  the 
Pacific.  It  is  their  votes  that  make  Mr.  Morgan  so  potent,  though, 
it  may  be  added,  they  need  his  brains  more  than  he  needs  their  votes  — 
at  present,  and  the  combination  of  the  two  constitutes  in  large  measure 
the  '  community  of  interest.' 

"  But  railways  coidd  not  alone  absorb  rapidly  enough  those  mighty 
floods  of  gold.  Presently  John  D.  Rockefeller' s  82,500,000  a  month 
had  increased  to  four,  to  five,  to  six  millions  a  month,  to  S75, 000,000  a 
year.  Illuminating  oil.  was  becoming  all  profit.  The  reinvestments  of 
income  were  adding  their  mite  of  many  annual  millions. 

"  The  Rockefellers  went  into  gas  and  electricity  when  those  industries 
had  developed  to  the  safe  investment  stage.  And  now  a  large  part  of 
the  American  people  must  begin  to  enrich  the  Rockefellers  as  soon  as  the 
sun  goes  down,  no  matter  what  form  of  illuminant  they  use.  They  went 
into  farm  mortgages.  It  is  said  that  when  prosperity  a  few  years  ago 
enabled  the  farmers  to  rid  themselves  of  their  mortgages,  John  D.  Rocke- 
feller was  moved  almost  to  tears;  eight  millions  which  he  had  thought 
taken  care  of  for  years  to  come  at  a  good  interest  were  suddenly  dumped 
upon  his  doorstep  and  there  set  up  a-squawking  for  a  new  home.  This 
unexpected  addition  to  his  worriments  in  finding  places  for  the  progeny 
of  his  petroleum  and  their  progeny  and  their  progeny' s  progeny  was  too 
much  for  the  equanimity  of  a  man  without  a  digestion.  .   .  . 

"  The  Rockefellers  went  into  mines  —  iron  and  coal  and  copper  and 
lead;  into  other  industrial  companies ;  into  street  railways,  into  national, 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  A  DREAM  161 

shell  will  be  taken  away  from  you.  The  Plutocracy 
has  all  power  in  its  hands  to-day.  It  to-day  makes 
the  laws,  for  it  owns  the  Senate,  Congress,  the  courts, 
and  the  state  legislatures.  And  not  only  that.  Behind 
law  must  be  force  to  execute  the  law.  To-day  the 
Plutocracy  makes  the  law,  and  to  enforce  the  law  it 
has  at  its  beck  and  call  the  police,  the  army,  the  navy, 
and,  lastly,  the  militia,  which  is  you,  and  me,  and  all  of 
us." 

Little  discussion  took  place  after  this,  and  the  dinner 
soon  broke  up.  All  were  quiet  and  subdued,  and  leave- 
taking  was  done  with  low  voices.  It  seemed  almost 
that  they  were  scared  by  the  vision  of  the  times  they 
had  seen. 

"The  situation  is,  indeed,  serious,"  Mr.  Calvin  said 

state,  and  municipal  bonds;  into  steamships  and  steamboats  and  teleg- 
raphy; into  real  estate,  into  sky  scrapers  and  residences  and  hotels 
and  business  blocks;  into  life  insurance,  into  banking.  There  was  soon 
literally  no  field  of  industry  where  their  millions  were  not  at  work.  .  .  . 

"  The  Rockefeller  bank —  the  National  City  Bank —  is  by  itself  far 
and  away  the  biggest  bank  in  the  United  States.  It  is  exceeded  in  the 
world  only  by  the  Bank  of  England  and  the  Bank  of  France.  The  de- 
posits average  more  than  one  hundred  millions  a  day ;  and  it  dominates 
the  call  loan  market  on  Wall  Street  and  the  stock  market.  But  it  is  not 
alone ;  it  is  the  head  of  the  Rockefeller  chain  of  banks,  which  includes 
fourteen  banks  and  trust  companies  in  New  York  City,  and  banks  of 
great  strength  and  influence  in  every  large  money  centre  in  the  country. 

"John  D.  Rockefeller  owns  Standard  Oil  stock  worth  between  four  and 
five  hundred  millions  at  the  market  quotations.  He  has  a  hundred  mil- 
lions in  the  steel  trust,  almost  as  much  in  a  single  western  railway  system, 
half  as  much  in  a  second,  and  so  on  and  on  and  on  until  the  mind  wearies 
of  the  cataloguing.  His  income  last  year  was  about  $100,000,000 —  it 
is  doubtful  if  the  incomes  of  all  the  Rothschilds  together  make  a  greater 
sum.     And  it  is  going  up  by  leaps  and  bounds." 


162  THE  IRON  HEEL 

to  Ernest.  "I  have  little  quarrel  with  the  way  you 
have  depicted  it.  Only  I  disagree  with  you  about 
the  doom  of  the  middle  class.  We  shall  survive,  and 
we  shall  overthrow  the  trusts." 

"And  return  to  the  ways  of  your  fathers,"  Ernest 
finished  for  him. 

"Even  so,"  Mr.  Calvin  answered  gravely.  "I  know 
it's  a  sort  of  machine-breaking,  and  that  it  is  absurd. 
But  then  life  seems  absurd  to-day,  what  of  the  machi- 
nations of  the  Plutocracy.  And  at  any  rate,  our  sort 
of  machine-breaking  is  at  least  practical  and  possible, 
which  your  dream  is  not.  Your  socialistic  dream  is 
.  .  .  well,  a  dream.     We  cannot  follow  you." 

"I  only  wish  you  fellows  knew  a  little  something 
about  evolution  and  sociology,"  Ernest  said  wistfully, 
as  they  shook  hands.  "We  would  be  saved  so  much 
trouble  if  you  did." 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   VORTEX 

Following  like  thunder  claps  upon  the  Business 
Men's  dinner,  occurred  event  after  event  of  terrifying 
moment ;  and  I,  little  I,  who  had  lived  so  placidly  all 
my  days  in  the  quiet  university  town,  found  myself 
and  my  personal  affairs  drawn  into  the  vortex  of  the 
great  world-affairs.  Whether  it  was  my  love  for 
Ernest,  or  the  clear  sight  he  had  given  me  of  the 
society  in  which  I  lived,  that  made  me  a  revolutionist, 
I  know  not ;  tmt  a  revolutionist  I  became,  and  I  was 
plunged  into  a  whirl  of  happenings  that  would  have 
been  inconceivable  three  short  months  before. 

The  crisis  in  my  own  fortunes  came  simultaneously 
with  great  crises  in  society.  First  of  all,  father  was 
discharged  from  the  university.  Oh,  he  was  not 
technically  discharged.  His  resignation  was  de- 
manded, that  was  all.  This,  in  itself,  did  not  amount 
to  much.  Father,  in  fact,  was  delighted.  He  was 
especially  delighted  because  his  discharge  had  been 
precipitated  by  the  publication  of  his  book,  "Econom- 
ics and  Education."  It  clinched  his  argument,  he 
contended.     What  better  evidence  could  be  advanced 

163 


104  THE  IRON  HEEL 

to  prove  that  education  was  dominated  by  the  capitalist 
class  ? 

But  this  proof  never  got  anywhere.  Nobody  knew 
he  had  been  forced  to  resign  from  the  university.  He 
was  so  eminent  a  scientist  that  such  an  announcement, 
coupled  with  the  reason  for  his  enforced  resignation, 
would  have  created  somewhat  of  a  furor  all  over  the 
world.  The  newspapers  showered  him  with  praise 
and  honor,  and  commended  him  for  having  given  up 
the  drudgery  of  the  lecture  room  in  order  to  devote  his 
whole  time  to  scientific  research. 

At  first  father  laughed.  Then  he  became  angry  — 
tonic  angry.  Then  came  the  suppression  of  his  book. 
This  suppression  was  performed  secretly,  so  secretly 
that  at  first  we  could  not  comprehend.  The  publica- 
tion of  the  book  had  immediately  caused  a  bit  of  ex- 
citement in  the  country.  Father  had  been  politely 
abused  in  the  capitalist  press,  the  tone  of  the  abuse 
being  to  the  effect  that  it  was  a  pity  so  great  a  scientist 
should  leave  his  field  and  invade  the  realm  of  sociology, 
about  which  he  knew  nothing  and  wherein  he  had 
promptly  become  lost.  This, lasted  for  a  week,  while 
father  chuckled  and  said  the  book  had  touched  a  sore 
spot  on  capitalism.  And  then,  abruptly,  the  news- 
papers and  the  critical  magazines  ceased  saying  any- 
thing about  the  book  at  all.  Also,  and  with  equal 
suddenness,  the  book  disappeared  from  the  market. 
Not    a    copy    was    obtainable    from    any    bookseller. 


THE  VORTEX  165 

Father  wrote  to  the  publishers  and  was  informed  that 
the  plates  had  been  accidentally  injured.  An  unsatis- 
factory correspondence  followed.  Driven  finally  to  an 
unequivocal  stand,  the  publishers  stated  that  they 
could  not  see  their  way  to  putting  the  book  into  type 
again,  but  that  they  were  quite  willing  to  relinquish 
their  rights  in  it. 

"And  you  won't  find  another  publishing  house  in  the 
country  to  touch  it,"  Ernest  said.  "And  if  I  were 
you,  I'd  hunt  cover  right  now.  You've  merely  got  a 
foretaste  of  the  Iron  Heel." 

But  father  was  nothing  if  not  a  scientist.  He  never 
believed  in  jumping  to  conclusions.  A  laboratory 
experiment  was  no  experiment  if  it  were  not  carried 
through  in  all  its  details.  So  he  patiently  went  the 
round  of  the  publishing  houses.  They  gave  a  multitude 
of  excuses,  but  not  one  house  would  consider  the  book. 

When  father  became  convinced  that  the  book  had 
actually  been  suppressed,  he  tried  to  get  the  fact  into 
the  newspapers ;  but  his  communications  were  ignored. 
At  a  political  meeting  of  the  socialists,  where  many 
reporters  were  present,  father  saw  his  chance.  He 
arose  and  related  the  history  of  the  suppression  of  the 
book.  He  laughed  next  day  when  he  read  the  news- 
papers, and  then  he  grew  angry  to  a  degree  that  elimi- 
nated all  tonic  qualities.  The  papers  made  no  mention 
of  the  book,  but  they  misreported  him  beautifully. 
They  twisted  his  words  and  phrases  away  from  the 


166  THE  IRON  HEEL 

context,  and  turned  his  subdued  and  controlled  re- 
marks into  a  howling  anarchistic  speech.  It  was  done 
artfully.  One  instance,  in  particular,  I  remember.  He 
had  used  the  phrase  "social  revolution."  The  reporter 
merely  dropped  out  "social."  This  wras  sent  out  all 
over  the  country  in  an  Associated  Press  despatch,  and 
from  all  over  the  country  arose  a  cry  of  alarm.  Father 
was  branded  as  a  nihilist  and  an  anarchist,  and  in  one 
cartoon  that  was  copied  widely  he  was  portrayed  wav- 
ing a  red  flag  at  the  head  of  a  mob  of  long-haired,  wild- 
eyed  men  who  bore  in  their  hands  torches,  knives, 
and  dynamite  bombs. 

He  was  assailed  terribly  in  the  press,  in  long  and 
abusive  editorials,  for  his  anarchy,  and  hints  were 
made  of  mental  breakdown  on  his  part.  This  be- 
havior, on  the  part  of  the  capitalist  press,  was  nothing 
new,  Ernest  told  us.  It  was  the  custom,  he  said,  to 
send  reporters  to  all  the  socialist  meetings  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  misreporting  and  distorting  what  was 
said,  in  order  to  frighten  the  middle  class  away  from 
any  possible  affiliation  with  the  proletariat.  And  re- 
peatedly Ernest  warned  father  to  cease  fighting  and 
to  take  to  cover. 

The  socialist  press  of  the  country  took  up  the  fight, 
however,  and  throughout  the  reading  portion  of  the 
working  class  it  was  known  that  the  book  had  been 
suppressed.  But  this  knowledge  stopped  with  the 
working  class.     Next,  the  "Appeal  to  Reason,"  a  big 


THE  VORTEX  167 

socialist  publishing  house,  arranged  with  father  to 
bring  out  the  book.  Father  was  jubilant,  but  Ernest 
was  alarmed. 

"I  tell  you  we  are  on  the  verge  of  the  unknown,'7 
he  insisted.  "Big  things  are  happening  secretly  all 
around  us.  We  can  feel  them.  We  do  not  know  what 
they  are,  but  they  are  there.  The  whole  fabric  of 
society  is  a-tremble  with  them.  Don't  ask  me.  I 
don't  know  myself.  But  out  of  this  flux  of  societ}7" 
something  is  about  to  crystallize.  It  is  crystallizing 
now.  The  suppression  of  the  book  is  a  precipitation. 
How  many  books  have  been  suppressed  ?  We  haven't 
the  least  idea.  We  are  in  the  dark.  We  have  no  way 
of  learning.  Watch  out  next  for  the  suppression  of  the 
socialist  press  and  socialist  publishing  houses.  I'm 
afraid  it's  coming.     We  are  going  to  be  throttled." 

Ernest  had  his  hand  on  the  pulse  of  events  even 
more  closely  than  the  rest  of  the  socialists,  and  within 
two  da}^s  the  first  blow  was  struck.  The  Appeal  to 
Reason  was  a  weekly,  and  its  regular  circulation 
amongst  the  proletariat  was  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand.  Also,  it  very  frequently  got  out  special 
editions  of  from  two  to  five  millions.  These  great 
editions  were  paid  for  and  distributed  by  the  small 
army  of  voluntary  workers  who  had  marshalled  around 
the  Appeal.  The  first  blow  was  aimed  at  these 
special  editions,  and  it  was  a  crushing  one.  By  an 
arbitrary  ruling  of  the  Post  Office,  these  editions  were 


168  THE  IRON  HEEL 

decided  to  be  not  the  regular  circulation  of  the  paper, 
and  for  that  reason  were  denied  admission  to  the  mails. 

A  week  later  the  Post  Office  Department  ruled  that 
the  paper  was  seditious,  and  barred  it  entirely  from 
the  mails.  This  was  a  fearful  blow  to  the  socialist 
propaganda.  The  Appeal  was  desperate.  It  de- 
vised a  plan  of  reaching  its  subscribers  through  the 
express  companies,  but  they  declined  to  handle  it. 
This  was  the  end  of  the  Appeal.  But  not  quite. 
It  prepared  to  go  on  with  its  book  publishing.  Twenty 
thousand  copies  of  father's  book  were  in  the  bindery, 
and  the  presses  were  turning  off  more.  And  then, 
without  warning,  a  mob  arose  one  night,  and,  under  a 
waving  American  flag,  singing  patriotic  songs,  set  fire 
to  the  great  plant  of  the  Appeal  and  totally  destroyed  it. 

Now  Girard,  Kansas,  was  a  quiet,  peaceable  town. 
There  had  never  been  any  labor  troubles  there.  The 
Appeal  paid  union  wages;  and,  in  fact,  was  the 
backbone  of  the  town,  giving  employment  to  hundreds 
of  men  and  women.  It  was  not  the  citizens  of  Girard 
that  composed  the  mob.  This  mob  had  risen  up  out 
of  the  earth  apparently,  and  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
its  work  done,  it  had  gone  back  into  the  earth.  Ernest 
saw  in  the  affair  the  most  sinister  import. 

"The  Black  Hundreds  *  are  being  organized  in  the 
United    States,"    he    said.     "This    is    the    beginning. 

1  The  Black  Hundreds  were  reactionary  mobs  organized  by  the 
perishing  Autocracy  in  the  Russian  Revolution.     These  reactionary 


THE  VORTEX  169 

There  will  be  more  of  it.  The  Iron  Heel  is  getting 
bold." 

And  so  perished  father's  book.  We  were  to  see 
much  of  the  Black  Hundreds  as  the  days  went  by. 
Week  by  week  more  of  the  socialist  papers  were  barred 
from  the  mails,  and  in  a  number  of  instances  the  Black 
Hundreds  destroyed  the  socialist  presses.  Of  course, 
the  newspapers  of  the  land  lived  up  to  trie  reactionary 
policy  of  the  ruling  class,  and  the  destroyed  socialist 
press  was  misrepresented  and  vilified,  while  the  Black 
Hundreds  were  represented  as  true  patriots  and  saviours 
of  society.  So  convincing  was  all  this  misrepresenta- 
tion that  even  sincere  ministers  in  the  pulpit  praised 
the  Black  Hundreds  while  regretting  the  necessity  of 
violence. 

History  was  making  fast.  The  fall  elections  were 
soon  to  occur,  and  Ernest  was  nominated  by  the 
socialist  party  to  run  for  Congress.  His  chance  for 
election  was  most  favorable.  The  street-car  strike  in 
San  Francisco  had  been  broken.  And  following  upon 
it  the  teamsters'  strike  had  been  broken.  These  two 
defeats  had  been  very  disastrous  to  organized  labor. 
The  whole  Water  Front  Federation,  along  with  its 
allies  in  the  structural  trades,  had  backed  up  the 
teamsters,  and  all  had  smashed  down  ingloriously.     It 

groups  attacked  the  revolutionary  groups,  and  also,  at  needed  mo- 
ments, rioted  and  destroyed  property  so  as  to  afford  the  Autocracy 
the  pretext  of  calling  out  the  Cossacks. 


170  THE  IRON  HEEL 

had  been  a  bloody  strike.  The  police  had  broken 
countless  heads  with  their  riot  clubs;  and  the  death 
list  had  been  augmented  by  the  turning  loose  of  a 
machine-gun  on  the  strikers  from  the  barns  of  the 
Marsden  Special  Delivery  Company. 

In  consequence,  the  men  were  sullen  and  vindictive. 
They  wanted  blood,  and  revenge.  Beaten  on  their 
chosen  field,  they  were  ripe  to  seek  revenge  by  means 
of  political  action.  They  still  maintained  their  labor 
organization,  and  this  gave  them  strength  in  the  politi- 
cal struggle  that  was  on.  Ernest's  chance  for  election 
grew  stronger  and  stronger.  Day  by  day  unions  and 
more  unions  voted  their  support  to  the  socialists,  until 
even  Ernest  laughed  when  the  Undertakers'  Assistants 
and  the  Chicken  Pickers  fell  into  line.  Labor  became 
mulish.  While  it  packed  the  socialist  meetings  with 
mad  enthusiasm,  it  was  impervious  to  the  wiles  of  the 
old-party  politicians.  The  old-party  orators  were  usu- 
ally greeted  with  empty  halls,  though  occasionally 
they  encountered  full  halls  where  they  were  so  roughly 
handled  that  more  than  once  it  was  necessary  to  call 
out  the  police  reserves. 

History  was  making  fast.  The  air  was  vibrant  with 
things  happening  and  impending.  The  country  was 
on  the  verge  of  hard  times,1  caused  by  a  series  of  pros- 

1  Under  the  capitalist  regime  these  periods  of  hard  times  were  as 
inevitable  as  they  were  absurd.  Prosperity  always  brought  calamity. 
This,  of  course,  was  due  to  the  excess  of  unconsumed  profits  that  was 
piled  up. 


THE  VORTEX  171 

perous  years  wherein  the  difficulty  of  disposing  abroad 
of  the  unconsumed  surplus  had  become  increasingly 
difficult.  Industries  were  working  short  time ;  many 
great  factories  were  standing  idle  against  the  time 
when  the  surplus  should  be  gone ;  and  wages  were  being 
cut  right  and  left. 

Also,  the  great  machinist  strike  had  been  broken. 
Two  hundred  thousand  machinists,  along  with  their 
five  hundred  thousand  allies  in  the  metal-working 
trades,  had  been  defeated  in  as  bloody  a  strike  as  had 
ever  marred  the  United  States.  Pitched  battles  had 
been  fought  with  the  small  armies  of  armed  strike- 
breakers 1  put  in  the  field  by  the  employers'  associa- 
tions; the  Black  Hundreds,  appearing  in  scores  of 
wide-scattered  places,  had  destro}red  property;  and, 
in  consequence,  a  hundred  thousand  regular  soldiers  of 
the  United  States  had  been  called  out  to  put  a  fright- 
ful end  to  the  whole  affair.     A  number  of  the  labor 

1  Strike-breakers —  these  were,  in  purpose  and  practice  and  every- 
thing except  name,  the  private  soldiers  of  the  capitalists.  They  were 
thoroughly  organized  and  well  armed,  and  they  were  held  in  readiness 
to  be  hurled  in  special  trains  to  any  part  of  the  country  where  labor 
went  out  on  strike  or  was  locked  out  by  the  employers.  Only  those 
curious  times  could  have  given  rise  to  the. amazing  spectacle  of  one, 
Farley,  a  notorious  commander  of  strike-breakers,  who,  in  1906, 
swept  across  the  United  States  ir>  special  trains  from  New  York  to 
San  Francisco  with  an  army  of  twenty-five  hundred  men,  fully  armed 
and  equipped,  to  break  a  strike  of  the  San  Francisco  street-car  men. 
Such  an  act  was  in  direct  violation  of  the  laws  of  the  land.  The 
fact  that  this  act,  and  thousands  of  similar  acts,  went  unpunished, 
goes  to  show  how  completely  the  judiciary  was  the  creature  of  the 
Plutocracy. 


172  THE  IRON  HEEL 

leaders  had  been  executed;  many  others  had  been 
sentenced  to  prison,  while  thousands  of  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  strikers  had  been  herded  into  bull-pens  ' 
and  abominably  treated  by  the  soldiers. 

The  years  of  prosperity  were  now  to  be  paid  for. 
All  markets  were  glutted;  all  markets  were  falling; 
and  amidst  the  general  crumble  of  prices  the  price  of 
labor  crumbled  fastest  of  all.  The  land  was  convulsed 
with  industrial  dissensions.  Labor  was  striking  here, 
there,  and  everywhere ;  and  where  it  was  not  striking, 
it  was  being  turned  out  by  the  capitalists.  The  papers 
were  filled  with  tales  of  violence  and  blood.  And 
through  it  all  the  Black  Hundreds  played  their  part. 
Riot,  arson,  and  wanton  destruction  of  property  was 
their  function,  and  well  they  performed  it.  The 
whole  regular  army  was  in  the  field,  called  there  by 
the  actions  of  the  Black  Hundreds.2    All  cities  and 

1  Bull-pen —  in  a  miners'  strike  in  Idaho,  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  it  happened  that  many  of  the  strikers  were  con- 
fined in  a  bull-pen  by  the  troops.  The  practice  and  the  name  con- 
tinued in  the  twentieth  century. 

2  The  name  only,  and  not  the  idea,  was  imported  from  Russia. 
The  Black  Hundreds  were  a  development  out  of  the  secret  agents  of 
the  capitalists,  and  their  use  arose  in  the  labor  struggles  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  There  is  no  discussion  of  this.  No  less  an  authority 
of  the  times  than  Carroll  D.  Wright,  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Labor,  is  responsible  for  the  statement.  From  his  book,  entitled 
"The  Battles  of  Labor,"  is  quoted  the  declaration  that  "in  some 
of  the  great  historic  strikes  the  employers  themselves  have  instigated  acts 
of  violence;"  that  manufacturers  have  deliberately  provoked  strikes 
in  order  to  get  rid  of  surplus  stock;  and  that  freight  cars  have  been 
burned  by  employers'  agents  during  railroad  strikes  in  order  to  increase 


THE  VORTEX  173 

towns  were  like  armed  camps,  and  laborers  were  shot 
down  like  dogs.  Out  of  the  vast  army  of  the  unem- 
ployed the  strike-breakers  were  recruited;  and  when 
the  strike-breakers  were  worsted  by  the  labor  unions, 
the  troops  always  appeared  and  crushed  the  unions. 
Then  there  was  the  militia.  As  yet,  it  was  not  neces- 
sary to  have  recourse  to  the  secret  militia  law.  Only 
the  regularly  organized  militia  was  out,  and  it  was  out 
everywhere.  And  in  this  time  of  terror,  the  regular 
army  was  increased  an  additional  hundred  thousand 
by  the  government. 

Never  had  labor  received  such  an  all-around  beating. 
The  great  captains  of  industry,  the  oligarchs,  had  for 
the  first  time  thrown  their  full  weight  into  the  breach 
the  struggling  employers'  associations  had  made. 
These  associations  were  practically  middle-class  affairs, 
and  now,  compelled  by  hard  times  and  crashing  mar- 
kets, and  aided  by  the  great  captains  of  industry,  they 
gave  organized  labor  an  awful  and  decisive  defeat. 
It  was  an  all-powerful  alliance,  but  it  was  an  alliance 
of  the  lion  and  the  lamb,  as  the  middle  class  was  soon 
to  learn. 

Labor  was  bloody  and  sullen,  but  crushed.  Yet 
its  defeat  did  not  put  an  end  to  the  hard  times.  The 
banks,  themselves  constituting  one  of  the  most  im- 

disorder.  It  was  out  of  these  secret  agents  of  the  employers  that  the 
Black  Hundreds  arose;  and  it  was  they,  in  turn,  that  later  became 
that  terrible  weapon  of  the  Oligarchy,  the  agents-provocateurs. 


174  THE  IRON  HEEL 

portant  forces  of  the  Oligarchy,  continued  to  call  in 
credits.  The  Wall  Street *  group  turned  the  stock 
market  into  a  maelstrom  where  the  values  of  all  the 
land  crumbled  away  almost  to  nothingness.  And  out 
of  all  the  rack  and  ruin  rose  the  form  of  the  nascent 
Oligarchy,  imperturbable,  indifferent,  and  sure.  Its 
serenity  and  certitude  was  terrifying.  Not  only  did 
it  use  its  own  vast  power,  but  it  used  all  the  power  of 
the  United  States  Treasury  to  carry  out  its  plans. 

The  captains  of  industry  had  turned  upon  the  middle 
class.  The  employers'  associations,  that  had  helped 
the  captains  of  industry  to  tear  and  rend  labor,  were 
now  torn  and  rent  by  their  quondam  allies.  Amidst 
the  crashing  of  the  middle  men,  the  small  business  men 
and  manufacturers,  the  trusts  stood  firm.  Nay,  the 
trusts  did  more  than  stand  firm.  They  were  active. 
They  sowed  wind,  and  wind,  and  ever  more  wind; 
for  they  alone  knew  how  to  reap  the  whirlwind  and 
make  a  profit  out  of  it.  And  such  profits !  Colossal 
profits !  Strong  enough  themselves  to  weather  the 
storm  that  was  largely  their  own  brewing,  they  turned 
loose. and  plundered  the  wrecks  that  floated  about 
them.  Values  were  pitifully  and  inconceivably 
shrunken,  and  the  trusts  added  hugely  to  their  hold- 
ings, even  extending  their  enterprises  into  many  new 

1  Wall  Street —  so  named  from  a  street  in  ancient  New  York,  where 
was  situated  the  stock  exchange,  and  where  the  irrational  organization 
of  society  permitted  underhanded  manipulation  of  all  the  industries 
of  the  country. 


THE  VORTEX  175 

fields  —  and   always   at   the   expense   of   the   middle 
class. 

Thus  the  summer  of  1912  witnessed  the  virtual  death- 
thrust  to  the  middle  class.  Even  Ernest  was  astounded 
at  the  quickness  with  which  it  had  been  done.  He 
shook  his  head  ominously  and  looked  forward  without 
hope  to  the  fall  elections. 

"It's  no  use,"  he  said.  "We  are  beaten.  The  Iron 
Heel  is  here.  I  had  hoped  for  a  peaceable  victory  at 
the  ballot-box.  I  was  wrong.  Wickson  was  right. 
We  shall  be  robbed  of  our  few  remaining  liberties ;  the 
Iron  Heel  will  walk  upon  our  faces;  nothing  remains 
but  a  bloody  revolution  of  the  working  class.  Of 
course  we  will  win,  but  I  shudder  to  think  of  it." 

And  from  then  on  Ernest  pinned  his  faith  in  revo- 
lution. In  this  he  was  in  advance  of  his  party.  His 
fellow-socialists  could  not  agree  with  him.  They  still 
insisted  that  victory  could  be  gained  through  the  elec- 
tions. It  was  not  that  they  were  stunned.  They  were 
too  cool-headed  and  courageous  for  that.  They  were 
merely  incredulous,  that  was  all.  Ernest  could  not  get 
them  seriously  to  fear  the  coming  of  the  Oligarchy. 
They  were  stirred  by  him,  but  they  were  too  sure  of 
their  own  strength.  There  was  no  room  in  their 
theoretical  social  evolution  for  an  oligarchy,  therefore 
the  Oligarchy  could  not  be. 

"We'll  send  you  to  Congress  and  it  will  be  all  right," 
they  told  him  at  one  of  our  secret  meetings. 


176  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"And  when  they  take  me  out  of  Congress,"  Ernest 
replied  coldly,  "and  put  me  against  a  wall,  and  blow 
my  brains  out  —  what  then  ?  " 

"Then  we'll  rise  in  our  might,"  a  dozen  voices 
answered  at  once. 

"Then  you'll  welter  in  your  gore,"  was  his  retort. 
"I've  heard  that  song  sung  by  the  middle  class,  and 
where  is  it  now  in  its  might?" 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   GREAT   ADVENTURE 

Mr.  Wickson  did  not  send  for  father.  They  met 
by  chance  on  the  ferry-boat  to  San  Francisco,  so  that 
the  warning  he  gave  father  was  not  premeditated. 
Had  they  not  met  accidentally,  there  would  not  have 
been  any  warning.  Not  that  the  outcome  would  have 
been  different,  however.  Father  came  of  stout  old 
Mayflower 1  stock,  and  the  blood  was  imperative  in 
him. 

"Ernest  was  right,"  he  told  me,  as  soon  as  he  had 
returned  home.  "Ernest  is  a  very  remarkable  young 
man,  and  I'd  rather  see  you  his  wife  than  the  wife  of 
Rockefeller  himself  or  the  King  of  England." 

"What's  the  matter?"  I  asked  in  alarm. 

"The  Oligarchy  is  about  to  tread  upon  our  faces  — 
yours  and  mine.  Wickson  as  much  as  told  me  so. 
He  was  very  kind  —  for  an  oligarch.  He  offered  to 
reinstate  me  in  the  university.  What  do  you  think 
of  that?    He,  Wickson,  a  sordid  money-grabber,  has 

1  One  of  the  first  ships  that  carried  colonies  to  America,  after  the 
discovery  of  the  New  World.  Descendants  of  these  original  colonists 
were  for  a  while  inordinately  proud  of  their  genealogy ;  but  in  time  the 
blood  became  so  widely  diffused  that  it  ran  in  the  veins  practically 
of  all  Americans. 

n  177 


178  THE  IRON  HEEL 

the  power  to  determine  whether  I  shall  or  shall  not 
teach  in  the  university  of  the  state.  But  he  offered 
me  even  better  than  that  —  offered  to  make  me  presi- 
dent of  some  great  college  of  physical  sciences  that  is 
being  planned  —  the  Oligarchy  must  get  rid  of  its 
surplus  somehow,  you  see. 

"  'Do  you  remember  what  I  told  that  socialist  lover 
of  your  daughter's?'  he  said.  'I  told  him  that  we 
would  walk  upon  the  faces  of  the  working  class.  And 
so  we  shall.  As  for  you,  I  have  for  you  a  deep  respect 
as  a  scientist ;  but  if  you  throw  your  fortunes  in  with 
the  working  class  —  well,  watch  out  for  your  face,  that 
is  all.'     And  then  he  turned  and  left  me." 

"It  means  we'll  have  to  marry  earlier  than  you 
planned,"  was  Ernest's  comment  when  we  told  him. 

I  could  not  follow  his  reasoning,  but  I  was  soon  to 
learn  it.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  quarterly  divi- 
dend of  the  Sierra  Mills  was  paid  —  or,  rather,  should 
have  been  paid,  for  father  did  not  receive  his.  After 
waiting  several  days,  father  wrote  to  the  secretary. 
Promptly  came  the  reply  that  there  was  no  record  on 
the  books  of  father's  owning  any  stock,  and  a  polite 
request  for  more  explicit  information. 

"I'll  make  it  explicit  enou'gh,  confound  him,"  father 
declared,  and  departed  for  the  bank  to  get  the  stock 
in  question  from  his  safe-deposit  box. 

"Ernest  is  a  very  remarkable  man,"  he  said  when 
he  got  back  and  while  I  was  helping  him  off  with  his 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE  179 

overcoat.     "I  repeat,  my  daughter,  that  }roung  man 
of  yours  is  a  very  remarkable  young  man." 

I  had  learned,  whenever  he  praised  Ernest  in  such 
fashion,  to  expect  disaster. 

"They  have  already  walked  upon  my  face,"  father 
explained.     "There  was  no  stock.     The  box  was  empty. 
You    and   Ernest   will   have   to    get   married   pretty 
quickly." 

Father  insisted  on  laboratory  methods.  He  brought 
the  Sierra  Mills  into  court,  but  he  could  not  bring  the 
books  of  the  Sierra  Mills  into  court.  He  did  not  con- 
trol the  courts,  and  the  Sierra  Mills  did.  That  explained 
it  all.  He  was  thoroughly  beaten  by  the  law,  and  the 
bare-faced  robbery  held  good. 

It  is  almost  laughable  now,  when  I  look  back  on  it, 
the  way  father  was  beaten.  He  met  Wickson  acci- 
dentally on  the  street  in  San  Francisco,  and  he  told 
Wickson  that  he  was  a  damned  scoundrel.  And  then 
father  was  arrested  for  attempted  assault,  fined  in  the 
police  court,  and  bound  over  to  keep  the  peace.  It 
was  all  so  ridiculous  that  when  he  got  home  he  had  to 
laugh  himself.  But  what  a  furor  was  raised  in  the 
local  papers !  There  was  grave  talk  about  the  bacillus 
of  violence  that  infected  all  men  who  embraced  social- 
ism; and  father,  with  his  long  and  peaceful  life,  was 
instanced  as  a  shining  example  of  how  the  bacillus  of 
violence  worked.  Also,  it  was  asserted  by  more  than 
one  paper  that  father's  mind  had  weakened  under  the 


ISO  THE  IRON  HEEL 

strain  of  scientific  study,  and  confinement  in  a  state 
asylum  for  the  insane  was  suggested.  Nor  was  this 
merely  talk.  It  was  an  imminent  peril.  But  father 
was  wise  enough  to  see  it.  He  had  the  Bishop's  ex- 
perience to  lesson  from,  and  he  lessoned  well.  He  kept 
quiet  no  matter  what  injustice  was  perpetrated  on 
him,  and  really,  I  think,  surprised  his  enemies. 

There  was  the  matter  of  the  house  —  our  home.  A 
mortgage  was  foreclosed  on  it,  and  we  had  to  give  up 
possession.  Of  course  there  wasn't  any  mortgage,  and 
never  had  been  any  mortgage.  The  ground  had  been 
bought  outright,  and  the  house  had  been  paid  for  when 
it  was  built.  And  house  and  lot  had  always  been  free 
and  unencumbered.  Nevertheless  there  was  the  mort- 
gage, properly  and  legally  drawn  up  and  signed,  with 
a  record  -of  the  payments  of  interest  through  a  number 
of  years.  Father  made  no  outcry.  As  he  had  been 
robbed  of  his  money,  so  was  he  now  robbed  of  his 
home.  And  he  had  no  recourse.  The  machinery  of 
society  was  in  the  hands  of  those  who  were  bent  on 
breaking  him.  He  was  a  philosopher  at  heart,  and  he 
was  no  longer  even  angry. 

"I  am  doomed  to  be  broken/'  he  said  to  me;  "but 
that  is  no  reason  that  I  should  not  try  to  be  shattered 
as  little  as  possible.  These  old  bones  of  mine  are 
fragile,  and  I've  learned  my  lesson.  God  knows 
I  don't  want  to  spend  my  last  days  in  an  insane 
asylum." 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE  181 

Which  reminds  me  of  Bishop  Morehouse,  whom 
I  have  neglected  for  many  pages.  But  first  let  me  tell 
of  my  marriage.  In  the  play  of  events,  my  marriage 
sinks  into  insignificance,  I  know,  so  I  shall  barely 
mention  it. 

"Now  we  shall  become  real  proletarians,"  father  said, 
when  we  were  driven  from  our  home.  "I  have  often 
envied  that  young  man  of  yours  for  his  actual  knowl- 
edge of  the  proletariat.  Now  I  shall  see  and  learn  for 
myself." 

Father  must  have  had  strong  in  him  the  blood  of 
adventure.  He  looked  upon  our  catastrophe  in  the 
light  of  an  adventure.  No  anger  nor  bitterness  pos- 
sessed him.  He  was  too  philosophic  and  simple  to 
be  vindictive,  and  he  lived  too  much  in  the  world  of 
mind  to  miss  the  creature  comforts  we  were  giving  up. 
So  it  was,  when  we  moved  to  San  Francisco  into  four 
wretched  rooms  in  the  slum  south  of  Market  Street, 
that  he  embarked  upon  the  adventure  with  the  joy 
and  enthusiasm  of  a  child  —  combined  with  the  clear 
sight  and  mental  grasp  of  an  extraordinary  intellect. 
He  really  never  crystallized  mentally.  He  had  no 
false  sense  of  values.  Conventional  or  habitual  values 
meant  nothing  to  him.  The  only  values  he  recognized 
were  mathematical  and  scientific  facts.  My  father 
was  a  great  man.  He  had  the  mind  and  the  soul  that 
only  great  men  have.  In  ways  he  was  even  greater 
than  Ernest,  than  whom  I  have  known  none  greater. 


182  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Even  I  found  some  relief  in  our  change  of  living.  If 
nothing  else,  I  was  escaping  from  the  organized  ostra- 
cism that  had  been  our  increasing  portion  in  the  uni- 
versity town  ever  since  the  enmity  of  the  nascent 
Oligarchy  had  been  incurred.  And  the  change  was  to 
me  likewise  adventure,  and  the  greatest  of  all,  for  it 
was  love-adventure.  The  change  in  our  fortunes  had 
hastened  my  marriage,  and  it  was  as  a  wife  that  I 
came  to  live  in  the  four  rooms  on  Pell  Street,  in  the  San 
Francisco  slum. 

And  this  out  of  all  remains:  I  made  Ernest  happy. 
I  came  into  his  storm}'  life,  not  as  a  new  perturbing 
force,  but  as  one  that  made  toward  peace  and  repose. 
I  gave  him  rest.  It  was  the  guerdon  of  my  love  for 
him.  It  was  the  one  infallible  token  that  I  had  not 
failed.  To  bring  forgetfulncss,  or  the  light  of  glad- 
ness, into  those  poor  tired  eyes  of  his  —  what  greater 
joy  could  have  blessed  me  than  that? 

Those  dear  tired  eyes.  He  toiled  as  few  men  ever 
toiled,  and  all  his  lifetime  he  toiled  for  others.  That 
was  the  measure  of  his  manhood.  He  was  a  humanist 
and  a  lover.  And  he,  with  his  incarnate  spirit  of  bat- 
tle, his  gladiator  body  and  his  eagle  spirit  —  he  was  as 
gentle  and  tender  to  me  as  a  poet.  He  was  a  poet.  A 
singer  in  deeds.  And  all  his  life  he  sang  the  song  of 
man.  And  he  did  it  out  of  sheer  love  of  man,  and  for 
man  he  gave  his  life  and  was  crucified. 

And  all  this  he  did  with  no  hope  of  future  reward. 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE  183 

In  hi  conception  of  things  there  was  no  future  life. 
He,  who  fairly  burnt  with  immortality,  denied  him- 
self immortality  —  such  was  the  paradox  of  him.  He, 
so  warm  in  spirit,  was  dominated  by  that  cold  and  for- 
bidding philosophy,  materialistic  monism.  I  used  to 
refute  him  by  telling  him  that  I  measured  his  immor- 
tality by  the  wings  of  his  soul,  and  that  I  should  have 
to  live  endless  aeons  in  order  to  achieve  the  full  meas- 
urement. Whereat  he  would  laugh,  and  his  arms 
would  leap  out  to  me,  and  he  would  call  me  his  sweet 
metaphysician;  and  the  tiredness  would  pass  out  of 
his  eyes,  and  into  them  would  flood  the  happy  love- 
light  that  was  in  itself  a  new  and  sufficient  advertise- 
ment of  his  immortality. 

Also,  he  used  to  call  me  his  dualist,  and  he  would 
explain  how  Kant,  by  means  of  pure  reason,  had 
abolished  reason,  in  order  to  worship  God.  And  he 
drew  the  parallel  and  included  me  guilty  of  a  similar 
act.  And  when  I  pleaded  guilty,  but  defended  the 
act  as  highly  rational,  he  but  pressed  me  closer  and 
laughed  as  only  one  of  God's  own  lovers  could  laugh. 
I  was  wont  to  deny  that  heredity  and  environment 
could  explain  his  own  originality  and  genius,  any 
more  than  could  the  cold  groping  finger  of  science 
catch  and  analyze  and  classify  that  elusive  essence 
that  lurked  in  the  constitution  of  life  itself. 

I  held  that  space  was  an  apparition  of  God,  and  that 
soul  was  a  projection  of  the  character  of  God  ;  and  when 


184  THE  IRON  HEEL 

he  called  me  his  sweet  metaphysician,  I  called  him 
my  immortal  materialist.  And  so  we  loved  and  were 
happy ;  and  I  forgave  him  his  materialism  because  of 
his  tremendous  work  in  the  world,  performed  without 
thought  of  soul-gain  thereby,  and  because  of  his  so  ex- 
ceeding modesty  of  spirit  that  prevented  him  from  hav- 
ing pride  and  regal  consciousness  of  himself  and  his  soul. 
But  he  had  pride.  How  could  he  have  been  an  eagle 
and  not  have  pride?  His  contention  was  that  it  was 
finer  for  a  finite  mortal  speck  of  life  to  feel  Godlike, 
than  for  a  god  to  feel  godlike ;  and  so  it  was  that  he 
exalted  what  he  deemed  his  mortality.  He  was  fond  of 
quoting  a  fragment  from  a  certain  poem.  He  had  never 
seen  the  whole  poem,  and  he  had  tried  vainly  to  learn 
its  authorship.  I  here  give  the  fragment,  not  alone 
because  he  loved  it,  but  because  it  epitomized  the  para- 
dox that  he  was  in  the  spirit  of  him,  and  his  conception  of 
his  spirit.  For  how  can  a  man,  with  thrilling,  and  burn- 
ing, and  exaltation,  recite  the  following  and  still  be 
mere  mortal  earth,  a  bit  of  fugitive  force,  an  evanescent 
form?     Here  it  is: 

"Joy  upon  joy  and  gain  upon  gain 
Are  the  destined  rights  of  my  birth, 
And  I  shout  the  praise  of  my  endless  days 
To  the  echoing  edge  of  the  earth. 
Though  I  suffer  all  deaths  that  a  man  can  di« 
To  the  uttermost  end  of  time, 
I  have  deep-drained  this,  my  cup  of  bliss, 
In  every  age  and  clime  — 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE  186 

The  froth  of  Pride,  the  tang  of  Power, 

The  sweet  of  Womanhood ! 

I  drain  the  lees  upon  my  knees, 

For  oh,  the  draught  is  good ; 

I  drink  to  Life,  I  drink  to  Death, 

And  smack  my  lips  with  song, 

For  when  I  die,  another  '  I '  shall  pass  the  cup  along. 

"  The  man  you  drove  from  Eden's  grove 

Was  I,  my  Lord,  was  I, 
And  I  shall  be  there  when  the  earth  and  the  air 

Are  rent  from  sea  to  sky ; 
For  it  is  my  world,  my  gorgeous  world, 

The  world  of  my  dearest  woes, 
From  the  first  faint  cry  of  the  newborn 

To  the  rack  of  the  woman's  throes. 

"Packed  with  the  pulse  of  an  unborn  race, 
Torn  with  a  world's  desire, 
The  surging  flood  of  my  wild  young  blood 
Would  quench  the  judgment  fire. 
I  am  Man,  Man,  Man,  from  the  tingling  flesh 
To  the  dust  of  my  earthly  goal, 
From  the  nestling  gloom  of  the  pregnant  womb 
To  the  sheen  of  my  naked  soul. 
Bone  of  my  bone  and  flesh  of  my  flesh 
The  whole  world  leaps  to  my  will, 
And  the  unslaked  thirst  of  an  Eden  cursed 
Shall  harrow  the  earth  for  its  fill. 
Almighty  God,  when  I  drain  life's  glass 
Of  all  its  rainbow  gleams, 
The  hapless  plight  of  eternal  night 
Shall  be  none  too  long  for  my  dreams. 

"The  man  you  drove  from  Eden's  grove 
Was  I,  my  Lord,  was  I, 


186  THE  IRON  HEEL 

And  I  shall  be  there  when  the  earth  and  the  air 

Are  rent  from  sea  to  sky ; 
For  it  is  my  world,  my  gorgeous  world, 

The  world  of  my  dear  delight, 
From  the  brightest  gleam  of  the  Arctic  stream 

To  the  dusk  of  my  own  love-night." 

Ernest  always  overworked.  His  wonderful  con- 
stitution kept  him  up;  but  even  that  constitution 
could  not  keep  the  tired  look  out  of  his  eyes.  His 
dear,  tired  eyes !  He  never  slept  more  than  four 
and  one-half  hours  a  night;  yet  he  never  found 
time  to  do  all  the  work  he  wanted  to  do.  He  never 
ceased  from  his  activities  as  a  propagandist,  and  was 
always  scheduled  long  in  advance  for  lectures  to  work- 
ingmen's  organizations.  Then  there  was  the  campaign. 
He  did  a  man's  full  work  in  that  alone.  With  the  sup- 
pression of  the  socialist  publishing  houses,  his  meagre 
royalties  ceased,  and  he  was  hard-put  to  make  a  living ; 
for  he  had  to  make  a  living  in  addition  to  all  his  other 
labor.  He  did  a  great  deal  of  translating  for  the  maga- 
zines on  scientific  and  philosophic  subjects;  and,  com- 
ing home  late  at  night,  worn  out  from  the  strain  of 
the  campaign,  he  would  plunge  into  his  translating  and 
toil  en  well  into  the  morning  hours.  And  in  addition  to 
everything,  there  was  his  studying.  To  the  day  of  his 
death  he  kept  up  his  studies,  and  he  studied  prodi- 
giously. 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE  187 

And  yet  he  found  time  in  which  to  love  me  and  make 
me  happy.  But  this  was  accomplished  only  through  my 
merging  my  life  completely  into  his.  I  learned  short- 
hand and  typewriting,  and  became  his  secretary.  He 
insisted  that  I  succeeded  in  cutting  his  work  in  half ;  and 
so  it  was  that  I  schooled  myself  to  understand  his  work. 
Our  interests  became  mutual,  and  we  worked  together 
and  played  together. 

And  then  there  were  our  sweet  stolen  moments  in  the 
midst  of  our  work  —  just  a  word,  or  caress,  or  flash  of 
love-light;  and  our  moments  were  sweeter  for  being 
stolen.  For  we  lived  on  the  heights,  where  the  air  was 
keen  and  sparkling,  where  the  toil  was  for  humanity, 
and  where  sordidness  and  selfishness  never  entered. 
We  loved  love,  and  our  love  was  never  smirched  by 
anything  less  than  the  best.  And  this  out  of  all  re- 
mains :  I  did  not  fail.  I  gave  him  rest  —  he  who 
worked  so  hard  for  others,  my  dear,  tired-eyed  mor- 
talist. 


CHAPTER  Xn 

THE   BISHOP 

It  was  after  my  marriage  that  I  chanced  upon  Bishop 
Morehouse.  But  I  must  give  the  events  in  their  proper 
sequence.  After  his  outbreak  at  the  I.  P.  H.  Con- 
vention, the  Bishop,  being  a  gentle  soul,  had  yielded 
to  the  friendly  pressure  brought  to  bear  upon  him,  and 
had  gone  away  on  a  vacation.  But  he  returned  more 
fixed  than  ever  in  his  determination  to  preach  the 
message  of  the  Church.  To  the  consternation  of  his 
congregation,  his  first  sermon  was  quite  similar  to  the 
address  he  had  given  before  the  Convention.  Again  he 
said,  and  at  length  and  with  distressing  detail,  that  the 
Church  had  wandered  away  from  the  Master's  teaching, 
and  that  Mammon  had  been  instated  in  the  place  of 
Christ. 

And  the  result  was,  willy-nilly,  that  he  was  led  away 
to  a  private  sanitarium  for  mental  disease,  while  in  the 
newspapers  appeared  pathetic  accounts  of  his  mental 
breakdown  and  of  the  saintliness  of  his  character.  He 
was  held  a  prisoner  in  the  sanitarium.  I  called  re- 
peatedly, but  was  denied  access  to  him ;    and  I  was 

188 


THE  BISHOP  189 

terribly  impressed  by  the  tragedy  of  a  sane,  normal, 
saintly  man  being  crushed  by  the  brutal  will  of  society. 
For  the  Bishop  was  sane,  and  pure,  and  noble.  As 
Ernest  said,  all  that  was  the  matter  with  him  was  that 
he  had  incorrect  notions  of  biology  and  sociology,  and 
because  of  his  incorrect  notions  he  had  not  gone  about 
it  in  the  right  way  to  rectify  matters. 

What  terrified  me  was  the  Bishop's  helplessness.  If 
he  persisted  in  the  truth  as  he  saw  it,  he  was  doomed  to 
an  insane  ward.  And  he  could  do  nothing.  His  money, 
his  position,  his  culture,  could  not  save  him.  His  views 
were  perilous  to  society,  and  society  could  not  conceive 
that  such  perilous  views  could  be  the  product  of  a  sane 
mind.  Or,  at  least,  it  seems  to  me  that  such  was 
society's  attitude. 

But  the  Bishop,  in  spite  of  the  gentleness  and  purity 
of  his  spirit,  was  possessed  of  guile.  He  apprehended 
clearly  his  danger.  He  saw  himself  caught  in  the  web, 
and  he  tried  to  escape  from  it.  Denied  help  from  his 
friends,  such  as  father  and  Ernest  and  I  could  have  given, 
he  was  left  to  battle  for  himself  alone.  And  in  the  en- 
forced solitude  of  the  sanitarium  he  recovered.  He 
became  again  sane.  His  eyes  ceased  to  see  visions ;  his 
brain  was  purged  of  the  fancy  that  it  was  the  duty  of 
society  to  feed  the  Master's  lambs. 

As  I  say,  he  became  well,  quite  well,  and  the  news- 
papers and  the  church  people  hailed  his  return  with 
joy.     I  went  once  to  his  church.     The  sermon  was  of 


190  THE  IRON  HEEL 

the  same  order  as  the  ones  he  had  preached  long  before 
his  eyes  had  seen  visions.  I  was  disappointed,  shocked. 
Had  society  then  beaten  him  into  submission?  Was 
he  a  coward?  Had  he  been  bulldozed  into  recanting? 
Or  had  the  strain  been  too  great  for  him,  and  had  he 
meekly  surrendered  to  the  Juggernaut  of  the  estab- 
lished ? 

I  called  upon  him  in  his  beautiful  home.  He  was 
wofully  changed.  He  was  thinner,  and  there  were  lines 
on  his  face  which  I  had  never  seen  before.  He  was 
manifestly  distressed  by  my  coming.  He  plucked  ner- 
vously at  his  sleeve  as  we  talked ;  and  his  eyes  were 
restless,  fluttering  here,  there,  and  everywhere,  and 
refusing  to  meet  mine.  His  mind  seemed  preoccupied, 
and  there  were  strange  pauses  in  his  conversation, 
abrupt  changes  of  topic,  and  an  inconsecutiveness  that 
was  bewildering.  Could  this,  then,  be  the  firm-poised, 
Christlike  man  I  had  known,  with  pure,  limpid  eyes 
and  a  gaze  steady  and  unfaltering  as  his  soul?  He  had 
been  man-handled ;  he  had  been  cowed  into  subjection. 
His  spirit  was  too  gentle.  It  had  not  been  mighty 
enough  to  face  the  organized  wolf-pack  of  society. 

I  felt  sad,  unutterably  sad.  He  talked  ambigu- 
ously, and  was  so  apprehensive  of  what  I  might  say 
that  I  had  not  the  heart  to  catechise  him.  He  spoke 
in  a  far-away  manner  of  his  illness,  and  we  talked  dis- 
jointedly  about  the  church,  the  alternations  in  the 
organ,  and  about  petty  charities ;  and  he  saw  me  depart 


THE  BISHOP  191 

with  such  evident  relief  that  I  should  have  laughed  had 
not  my  heart  been  so  full  of  tears. 

The  poor  little  hero  !  If  I  had  only  known  !  He  was 
battling  like  a  giant,  and  I  did  not  guess  it.  Alone, 
all  alone,  in  the  midst  of  millions  of  his  fellow-men,  he 
was  fighting  his  fight.  Torn  by  his  horror  of  the  asylum 
and  his  fidelity  to  truth  and  the  right,  he  clung  stead- 
fastly to  truth  and  the  right ;  but  so  alone  was  he  that 
he  did  not  dare  to  trust  even  me.  He  had  learned  his 
lesson  well  —  too  well. 

But  I  was  soon  to  know.  One  day  the  Bishop  dis- 
appeared. He  had  told  nobody  that  he  was  going 
away ;  and  as  the  days  went  by  and  he  did  not  re- 
appear, there  was  much  gossip  to  the  effect  that  he  had 
committed  suicide  while  temporarily  deranged.  But 
this  idea  was  dispelled  when  it  was  learned  that  he  had 
sold  all  his  possessions,  —  his  city  mansion,  his  country 
house  at  Menlo  Park,  his  paintings,  and  collections,  and 
even  his  cherished  library.  It  was  patent  that  he  had 
made  a  clean  and  secret  sweep  of  everything  before  he 
disappeared. 

This  happened  during  the  time  when  calamity  had 
overtaken  us  in  our  own  affairs ;  and  it  was  not  till  we 
were  well  settled  in  our  new  home  that  we  had  op- 
portunity really  to  wonder  and  speculate  about  the 
Bishop's  doings.  And  then,  everything  was  suddenly 
made  clear.  Early  one  evening,  while  it  was  yet  twi- 
light, I  had  run  across  the  street  and  into  the  butcher- 


192  THE  IRON  HEEL 

shop  to  get  some  chops  for  Ernest's  supper.  We  called 
the  last  meal  of  the  day  "supper"  in  our  new  environ- 
ment. 

Just  at  the  moment  I  came  out  of  the  butcher-shop, 
a  man  emerged  from  the  corner  grocery  that  stood 
alongside.  A  queer  sense  of  familiarity  made  me  look 
again.  But  the  man  had  turned  and  was  walking 
rapidly  awa}^.  There  was  something  about  the  slope  of 
the  shoulders  and  the  fringe  of  silver  hair  between  coat 
collar  and  slouch  hat  that  aroused  vague  memories. 
Instead  of  crossing  the  street,  I  hurried  after  the  man. 
I  quickened  my  pace,  trying  not  to  think  the  thoughts 
that  formed  unbidden  in  my  brain.  No,  it  was  impos- 
sible. It  could  not  be  —  not  in  those  faded  overalls, 
too  long  in  the  legs  and  frayed  at  the  bottoms. 

I  paused,  laughed  at  myself,  and  almost  abandoned 
the  chase.  But  the  haunting  familiarity  of  those 
shoulders  and  that  silver  hair !  Again  I  hurried  on. 
As  I  passed  him,  I  shot  a  keen  look  at  his  face ;  then  I 
whirled  around  abruptly  and  confronted  —  the  Bishop. 

He  halted  with  equal  abruptness,  and  gasped.  A 
large  paper  bag  in  his  right  hand  fell  to  the  sidewalk. 
It  burst,  and  about  his  feet  and  mine  bounced  and 
rolled  a  flood  of  potatoes.  He  looked  at  me  with  sur- 
prise and  alarm,  then  he  seemed  to  wilt  away;  the 
shoulders  drooped  with  dejection,  and  he  uttered  a  deep 
sigh. 

I  held  out  my  hand.     He  shook  it,  but  his  hand  felt 


THE  BISHOP  193 

•clammy.  He  cleared  his  throat  in  embarrassment,  and 
I  could  see  the  sweat  starting  out  on  his  forehead.  It 
was  evident  that  he  was  badly  frightened. 

"The  potatoes/'  he  murmured  faintly.  "They  are 
precious." 

Between  us  we  picked  them  up  and  replaced  them  in 
the  broken  bag,  which  he  now  held  carefully  in  the  hol- 
low of  his  arm.  I  tried  to  tell  him  my  gladness  at 
meeting  him  and  that  he  must  come  right  home  with 
me. 

"Father  will  be  rejoiced  to  see  you,"  I  said.  "We 
live  only  a  stone's  throw  away." 

"I  can't,"  he  said,  "I  must  be  going.     Good-by." 

He  looked  apprehensively  about  him,  as  though 
dreading  discovery,  and  made  an  attempt  to  walk  on. 

"Tell  me  where  you  live,  and  I  shall  call  later,"  he 
said,  when  he  saw  that  I  walked  beside  him  and  that 
it  was  my  intention  to  stick  to  him  now  that  he  was 
found. 

"No,"  I  answered  firmly.     "You  must  come  now." 

He  looked  at  the  potatoes  spilling  on  his  arm,  and  at 
the  small  parcels  on  his  other  arm. 

"Really,  it  is  impossible,"  he  said.  "Forgive  me  for 
my  rudeness.     If  you  only  knew." 

He  looked  as  if  he  were  going  to  break  down,  but  the 
next  moment  he  had  himself  in  control. 

"Besides,  this  food,"  he  went  on.  "It  is  a  sad  case. 
It  is  terrible.     She  is  an  old  woman.     I  must  take  it  to 


194  THE  IRON  HEEL 

her  at  once.  She  is  suffering  from  want  of  it.  I  must 
go  at  once.  You  understand.  Then  I  will  return.  I 
promise  j^ou." 

"Let  me  go  with  you,"  I  volunteered.     "Is  it  far?" 

He  sighed  again,  and  surrendered. 

"Only  two  blocks,"  he  said.     "Let  us  hasten." 

Under  the  Bishop's  guidance  I  learned  something 
of  my  own  neighborhood.  I  had  not  dreamed  such 
wretchedness  and  misery  existed  in  it.  Of  course, 
this  was  because  I  did  not  concern  myself  with  charity. 
I  had  become  convinced  that  Ernest  was  right  when 
he  sneered  at  charity  as  a  poulticing  of  an  ulcer. 
Remove  the  ulcer,  was  his  remedy;  give  to  the  worker 
his  product ;  pension  as  soldiers  those  who  grow  honor- 
ably old  in  their  toil,  and  there  will  be  no  need  for 
charity.  Convinced  of  this,  I  toiled  with  him  at  the 
revolution,  and  did  not  exhaust  my  energy  in  alle- 
viating the  social  ills  that  continuously  arose  from  the 
injustice   of  the   system. 

I  followed  the  Bishop  into  a  small  room,  ten  by 
twelve,  in  a  rear  tenement.  And  there  we  found  a 
little  old  German  woman  —  sixty-four  years  old,  the 
Bishop  said.  She  was  surprised  at  seeing  me,  but 
she  nodded  a  pleasant  greeting  and  went  on  sewing  on 
the  pair  of  men's  trousers  in  her  lap.  Beside  her,  on 
the  floor,  was  a  pile  of  trousers.  The  Bishop  dis- 
covered there  was  neither  coal  nor  kindling,  and  went 
out  to  buy  some, 


THE  BISHOP  195 

I  took  up  a  pair  of  trousers  and  examined  her  work. 

"Six  cents,  lady/'  she  said,  nodding  her  head  gently 
while  she  went  on  stitching.  She  stitched  slowly,  but 
never  did  she  cease  from  stitching.  She  seemed  mas- 
tered by  the  verb  "to  stitch." 

"For  all  that  work?"  I  asked.  "Is  that  what  they 
pay?     How  long  does  it  take  you?" 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  "that  is  what  they  pay.  Six 
cents  for  finishing.     Two  hours'  sewing  on  each  pair. 

"But  the  boss  doesn't  know  that,"  she  added  quickly, 
betraying  a  fear  of  getting  him  into  trouble.  "I'm 
slow.  I've  got  the  rheumatism  in  my  hands.  Girls 
work  much  faster.  They  finish  in  half  that  time.  The 
boss  is  kind.  He  lets  me  take  the  work  home,  now 
that  I  am  old  and  the  noise  of  the  machine  bothers  my 
head.     If  it  wasn't  for  his  kindness,  I'd  starve. 

"Yes,  those  who  work  in  the  shop  get  eight  cents. 
But  what  can  you  do  ?  There  is  not  enough  work  for 
the  young.  The  old  have  no  chance.  Often  one  pair 
is  all  I  can  get.  Sometimes,  like  to-day,  I  am  given 
eight  pair  to  finish  before  night." 

I  asked  her  the  hours  she  worked,  and  she  said  it 
depended  on  the  season. 

"In  the  summer,  when  there  is  a  rush  order,  I  work 
from  five  in  the  morning  to  nine  at  night.  But  in  the 
winter  it  is  too  cold.  The  hands  do  not  early  get  over 
the  stiffness.  Then  you  must  work  later  —  till  after 
midnight  sometimes. 


196  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"Yes,  it  has  been  a  bad  summer.  The  hard  times. 
God  must  be  angry.  This  is  the  first  work  the  boss 
has  given  me  in  a  week.  It  is  true,  one  cannot  eat 
much  when  there  is  no  work.  I  am  used  to  it.  I  have 
sewed  all  my  life,  in  the  old  country  and  here  in  San 
Francisco  —  thirty-three  years. 

"If  you  are  sure  of  the  rent,  it  is  all  right.  The 
houseman  is  very  kind,  but  he  must  have  his  rent. 
It  is  fair.  He  only  charges  three  dollars  for  this  room. 
That  is  cheap.  But  it  is  not  easy  for  you  to  find  all  of 
three  dollars  every  month." 

She  ceased  talking,  and,  nodding  her  head,  went  on 
stitching. 

"You  have  to  be  very  careful  as  to  how  you  spend 
your  earnings,"  I  suggested. 

She  nodded  emphatically. 

"After  the  rent  it's  not  so  bad.  Of  course  you  can't 
buy  meat.  And  there  is  no  milk  for  the  coffee.  But 
always  there  is  one  meal  a  day,  and  often  two." 

She  said  this  last  proudly.  There  was  a  smack  of 
success  in  her  words.  But  as  she  stitched  on  in  silence, 
I  noticed  the  sadness  in  her  pleasant  eyes  and  the  droop 
of  her  mouth.  The  look  in  her  eyes  became  far  away. 
She  rubbed  the  dimness  hastily  out  of  them ;  it  inter- 
fered with  her  stitching. 

"No,  it  is  not  the  hunger  that  makes  the  heart 
ache,"  she  explained.  "You  get  used  to  being  hun- 
gry.    It  is  for  my  child  that  I  cry.     It  was  the  machine 


THE  BISHOP  197 

that  killed  her.  It  is  true  she  worked  hard,  but  I 
cannot  understand.  She  was  strong.  And  she  was 
young  —  only  forty ;  and  she  worked  only  thirty  years. 
She  began  young,  it  is  true;  but  my  man  died.  The 
boiler  exploded  down  at  the  works.  And  what  were 
we  to  do  ?  She  was  ten,  but  she  was  very  strong.  But 
the  machine  killed  her.  Yes,  it  did.  It  killed  her,  and 
she  was  the  fastest  worker  in  the  shop.  I  have  thought 
about  it  often,  and  I  know.  That  is  why  I  cannot  work 
in  the  shop.  The  machine  bothers  my  head.  Always 
I  hear  it  saying,  'I  did  it,  I  did  it.'  And  it  says  that 
all  day  long.  And  then  I  think  of  my  daughter,  and  I 
cannot  work." 

The  moistness  was  in  her  old  eyes  again,  and 
she  had  to  wipe  it  away  before  she  could  go  on 
stitching. 

I  heard  the  Bishop  stumbling  up  the  stairs,  and  I 
opened  the  door.  What  a  spectacle  he  was.  On  his 
back  he  carried  half  a  sack  of  coal,  with  kindling  on 
top.  Some  of  the  coal  dust  had  coated  his  face,  and 
the  sweat  from  his  exertions  was  running  in  streaks. 
He  dropped  his  burden  in  the  corner  by  the  stove  and 
wiped  his  face  on  a  coarse  bandana  handkerchief.  I 
could  scarcely  accept  the  verdict  of  my  senses.  The 
Bishop,  black  as  a  coal-heaver,  in  a  workingman's 
cheap  cotton  shirt  (one  button  was  missing  from  the 
throat),  and  in  overalls  !  That  was  the  most  incongru- 
ous of  all  —  the  overalls,  frayed  at  the  bottoms,  dragged 


19S  THE  IRON  HEEL 

down  at  the  heels,  and  held  up  by  a  narrow  leather  belt 
around  the  hips  such  as  laborers  wear. 

Though  the  Bishop  was  warm,  the  poor  swollen 
hands  of  the  old  woman  were  already  cramping  with 
the  cold ;  and  before  we  left  her,  the  Bishop  had  built 
the  fire,  while  I  had  peeled  the  potatoes  and  put  them 
on  to  boil.  I  was  to  learn,  as  time  went  by,  that  there 
were  many  cases  similar  to  hers,  and  many  worse, 
hidden  away  in  the  monstrous  depths  of  the  tenements 
in  my  neighborhood. 

We  got  back  to  find  Ernest  alarmed  by  my  absence. 
After  the  first  surprise  of  greeting  was  over,  the  Bishop 
leaned  back  in  his  chair,  stretched  out  his  overall- 
covered  legs,  and  actually  sighed  a  comfortable  sigh. 
We  were  the  first  of  his  old  friends  he  had  met  since 
his  disappearance,  he  told  us;  and  during  the  inter- 
vening weeks  he  must  have  suffered  greatly  from 
loneliness.  He  told  us  much,  though  he  told  us  more 
of  the  joy  he  had  experienced  in  doing  the  Master's 
bidding. 

"For  truly  now,"  he  said,  "I  am  feeding  his  lambs. 
And  I  have  learned  a  great  lesson.  The  soul  cannot  be 
ministered  to  till  the  stomach  is  appeased.  His  lambs 
must  be  fed  bread  and  butter  and  potatoes  and  meat ; 
after  that,  and  only  after  that,  are  their  spirits  ready 
for  more  refined  nourishment." 

He  ate  heartily  of  the  supper  I  cooked.  Never  had 
he  had  such  an  appetite  at  our  table  in  the  old  days. 


THE  BISHOP  199 

We  spoke  of  it,  and  he  said  that  he  had  never  been  so 
healthy  in  his  life. 

"I  walk  always  now,"  he  said,  and  a  blush  was  on  his 
cheek  at  the  thought  of  the  time  when  he  rode  in  his 
carriage,  as  though  it  were  a  sin  not  Hghtry  to  be  laid. 

"My  health  is  better  for  it,"  he  added  hastily. 
"And  I  am  very  happy  —  indeed,  most  happy.  At 
last  I  am  a  consecrated  spirit." 

And  yet  there  was  in  his  face  a  permanent  pain,  the 
pain  of  the  world  that  he  was  now  taking  to  himself. 
He  was  seeing  life  in  the  raw,  and  it  was  a  different  life 
from  what  he  had  known  within  the  printed  books  of 
his  library. 

j    "And  3^ou  are  responsible  for  all  this,  young  man," 
he  said  directly  to  Ernest. 

Ernest  was  embarrassed  and  awkward. 

"I  —  I  warned  you,"  he  faltered. 

"No,  you  misunderstand,"  the  Bishop  answered. 
"I  speak  not  in  reproach,  but  in  gratitude.  I  have  you 
to  thank  for  showing  me  my  path.  You  led  me  from 
theories  about  life  to  life  itself.  You  pulled  aside  the 
veils  from  the  social  shams.  You  were  light  in  my 
darkness,  but  now  I,  too,  see  the  light.  And  I  am  very 
happy,  only  ..."  he  hesitated  painfully,  and  in  his 
eyes  fear  leaped  large.  "Only  the  persecution.  I  harm 
no  one.  Why  will  they  not  let  me  alone?  But  it  is 
not  that.  It  is  the  nature  of  the  persecution.  I 
shouldn't  mind  if  they  cut  my  flesh  with  stripes,  or 


200  THE  IRON  HEEL 

burned  me  at  the  stake,  or  crucified  me  head-down- 
ward. But  it  is  the  asylum  that  frightens  me.  Think 
of  it !  Of  me  —  in  an  asylum  for  the  insane !  It  is 
revolting.  I  saw  some  of  the  cases  at  the  sanitarium. 
They  were  violent.  My  blood  chills  when  I  think  of  it. 
And  to  be  imprisoned  for  the  rest  of  my  life  amid 
scenes  of  screaming  madness !  No  !  no  !  Not  that ! 
Not  that!" 

It  was  pitiful.  His  hands  shook,  his  whole  body 
quivered  and  shrank  away  from  the  picture  he  had 
conjured.     But  the  next  moment  he  was  calm. 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said  simply.  "It  is  my  wretched 
nerves.  And  if  the  Master's  work  leads  there,  so  be 
it.     Who  am  I  to  complain?" 

I  felt  like  crying  aloud  as  I  looked  at  him:  "Great 
Bishop  !     0  hero  !     God's  hero  !" 

As  the  evening  wore  on  we  learned  more  of  his 
doings. 

"  I  sold  my  house — my  houses,  rather,"  he  said,  "  and 
all  my  other  possessions.  I  knew  I  must  do  it  secretly, 
else  they  would  have  taken  everything  away  from  me. 
That  would  have  been  terrible.  I  often  marvel  these 
days  at  the  immense  quantity  of  potatoes  two  or  three 
hundred  thousand  dollars  will  buy,  or  bread,  or  meat, 
or  coal  and  kindling."  He  turned  to  Ernest.  "You 
are  right,  young  man.  Labor  is  dreadfully  underpaid. 
I  never  did  a  bit  of  work  in  my  life,  except  to  appeal 
aesthetically  to  Pharisees  —  I  thought  I  was  preaching 


THE  BISHOP  201 

the  message  —  and  yet  I  was  worth  half  a  million 
dollars.  I  never  knew  what  half  a  million  dollars 
meant  until  I  realized  how  much  potatoes  and  bread 
and  butter  and  meat  it  could  buy.  And  then  I  realized 
something  more.  I  realized  that  all  those  potatoes  and 
that  bread  and  butter  and  meat  were  mine,  and  that  I 
had  not  worked  to  make  them.  Then  it  was  clear  to 
me,  some  one  else  had  worked  and  made  them  and  been 
robbed  of  them.  And  when  I  came  down  amongst 
the  poor  I  found  those  who  had  been  robbed  and  who 
were  hungry  and  wretched  because  they  had  been 
robbed." 

We  drew  him  back  to  his  narrative. 

"The  money?  I  have  it  deposited  in  many  different 
banks  under  different  names.  It  can  never  be  taken 
away  from  me,  because  it  can  never  be  found.  And  it 
is  so  good,  that  money.  It  buys  so  much  food.  I  never 
knew  before  what  money  was  good  for." 

"I  wish  we  could  get  some  of  it  for  the  propaganda," 
Ernest  said  wistfully.     "It  would  do  immense  good." 

"Do  you  think  so?"  the  Bishop  said.  "I  do  not 
have  much  faith  in  politics.  In  fact,  I  am  afraid  I  do 
not  understand  politics." 

Ernest  was  delicate  in  such  matters.  He  did  not 
repeat  his  suggestion,  though  he  knew  only  too  well 
the  sore  straits  the  Socialist  Party  was  in  through  lack 
of  money. 

"I  sleep  in  cheap  lodging  houses,"  the  Bishop  went 


202  THE  IRON  HEEL 

on.  "But  I  am  afraid,  and  I  never  stay  long  in  one 
place.  Also,  I  rent  two  rooms  in  working-men's  houses 
in  different  quarters  of  the  city.  It  is  a  great  extrava- 
gance, I  know,  but  it  is  necessary.  I  make  up  for  it  in 
part  by  doing  my  own  cooking,  though  sometimes  I  get 
something  to  eat  in  cheap  coffee-houses.  And  I  have 
made  a  discovery.  Tamales  *  are  very  good  when  the 
air  grows  chilly  late  at  night.  Only  they  are  so  expen- 
sive. But  I  have  discovered  a  place  where  I  can  get 
three  for  ten  cents.  They  are  not  so  good  as  the  others, 
but  they  are  very  warming. 

"And  so  I  have  at  last  found  my  work  in  the  world, 
thanks  to  you,  young  man.  It  is  the  Master's  work." 
He  looked  at  me,  and  his  eyes  twinkled.  "You  caught 
me  feeding  his  lambs,  you  know.  And  of  course  you 
will  all  keep  my  secret." 

He  spoke  carelessly  enough,  but  there  was  real  fear 
behind  the  speech.  He  promised  to  call  upon  us  again. 
But  a  week  later  we  read  in  the  newspaper  of  the  sad 
case  of  Bishop  Morehouse,  who  had  been  committed  to 
the  Napa  Asylum  and  for  whom  there  were  still  hopes 
held  out.  In  vain  we  tried  to  see  him,  to  have  his  case 
reconsidered  or  investigated.  Nor  could  we  learn 
anything  about  him  except  the  reiterated  statements 
that  slight  hopes  were  still  held  for  his  recovery. 


1  A  Mexican  dish,  referred  to  occasionally  in  the  literature  of  the 
times.  It  is  supposed  that  it  was  warmly  seasoned.  No  recipe  of  it 
has  come  down  to  us. 


THE  BISHOP  203 

"  Christ  told  the  rich  young  man  to  sell  all  he  had/' 
Ernest  said  bitterly.  "The  Bishop  obeyed  Christ's 
injunction  and  got  locked  up  in  a  madhouse.  Times 
have  changed  since  Christ's  day.  A  rich  man  to-day 
who  gives  all  he  has  to  the  poor  is  crazy.  There  is 
no  discussion.     Society  has  spoken." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   GENERAL  STRIKE 

Op  course  Ernest  was  elected  to  Congress  in  the  great 
socialist  landslide  that  took  place  in  the  fall  of  1912. 
One  great  factor  that  helped  to  swell  the  socialist  vote 
was  the  destruction  of  Hearst.1  This  the  Plutocracy 
found  an  easy  task.  It  cost  Hearst  eighteen  million 
dollars  a  year  to  run  his  various  papers,  and  this  sum, 
and  more,  he  got  back  from  the  middle  class  in  pay- 
ment for  advertising.  The  source  of  his  financial 
strength  lay  wholly  in  the  middle  class.  The  trusts 
did  not  advertise.2  To  destroy  Hearst,  all  that  was 
necessary  was  to  take  away  from  him  his  advertising. 

The  whole  middle  class  had  not  yet  been  extermi- 

1  William  Randolph  Hearst —  a  young  California  millionaire  who 
became  the  most  powerful  newspaper  owner  in  the  country.  His 
newspapers  were  published  in  all  the  large  cities,  and  they  appealed 
to  the  perishing  middle  class  and  to  the  proletariat.  So  large  was 
his  following  that  he  managed  to  take  possession  of  the  empty  shell 
of  the  old  Democratic  Party.  He  occupied  an  anomalous  position, 
preaching  an  emasculated  socialism  combined  with  a  nondescript 
sort  of  petty  bourgeois  capitalism.  It  was  oil  and  water,  and  there 
was  no  hope  for  him,  though  for  a  short  period  he  was  a  source  of 
serious  apprehension  to  the  Plutocrats. 

2  The  cost  of  advertising  was  amazing  in  those  helter-skelter  times. 
Only  the  small  capitalists  competed,  and  therefore  they  did  the  ad- 
vertising. There  being  no  competition  where  there  was  a  trust,  there 
was  no  need  for  the  trusts  to  advertise. 

204 


THE  GENERAL  STRIKE  205 

nated.  The  sturdy  skeleton  of  it  remained;  but  it 
was  without  power.  The  small  manufacturers  and 
small  business  men  who  still  survived  were  at  the  com- 
plete mercy  of  the  Plutocracy.  They  had  no  economic 
nor  political  souls  of  their  own.  When  the  fiat  of  the 
Plutocracy  went  forth,  they  withdrew  their  advertise- 
ments from  the  Hearst  papers. 

Hearst  made  a  gallant  fight.  He  brought  his  papers 
out  at  a  loss  of  a  million  and  a  half  each  month.  He 
continued  to  publish  the  advertisements  for  which  he 
no  longer  received  pay.  Again  the  fiat  of  the  Plu- 
tocracy went  forth,  and  the  small  business  men  and 
manufacturers  swamped  him  with  a  flood  of  notices 
that  he  must  discontinue  running  their  old  advertise- 
ments. Hearst  persisted.  Injunctions  were  served 
on  him.  Still  he  persisted.  He  received  six  months' 
imprisonment  for  contempt  of  court  in  disobeying  the 
injunctions,  while  he  was  bankrupted  by  countless 
damage  suits.  He  had  no  chance.  The  Plutocracy 
had  passed  sentence  on  him.  The  courts  were  in  the 
hands  of  the  Plutocracy  to  carry  the  sentence  out. 
And  with  Hearst  crashed  also  to  destruction  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  that  he  had  so  recently  captured. 

With  the  destruction  of  Hearst  and  the  Democratic 
Party,  there  were  only  two  paths  for  his  following  to 
take.  One  was  into  the  Socialist  Party;  the  other 
was  into  the  Republican  Party.  Then  it  was  that  we 
socialists  reaped  the  fruit  of  Hearst's  pseudo-socialistic 


206  THE  IRON  HEEL 

preaching;  for  the  great  majority  of  his  followers 
came  over  to  us. 

The  expropriation  of  the  farmers  that  took  place  at 
this  time  would  also  have  swelled  our  vote  had  it  not 
been  for  the  brief  and  futile  rise  of  the  Grange  Party. 
Ernest  and  the  socialist  leaders  fought  fiercely  to  cap- 
ture the  farmers;  but  the  destruction  of  the  socialist 
press  and  publishing  houses  constituted  too  great  a 
handicap,  while  the  mouth-to-mouth  propaganda  had 
not  yet  been  perfected.  So  it  was  that  politicians 
like  Mr.  Calvin,  who  were  themselves  farmers  long  since 
expropriated,  captured  the  farmers  and  threw  their 
political  strength  away  in  a  vain  campaign. 

"The  poor  farmers,"  Ernest  once  laughed  savagely; 
"the  trusts  have  them  both  coming  and  going." 

And  that, was  really  the  situation.  The  seven  great 
trusts,  working  together,  had  pooled  their  enormous 
surpluses  and  made  a  farm  trust.  The  railroads,  con- 
trolling rates,  and  the  bankers  and  stock  exchange 
gamesters,  controlling  prices,  had  long  since  bled  the 
farmers  into  indebtedness.  The  bankers,  and  all  the 
trusts  for  that  matter,  had  likewise  long  since  loaned 
colossal  amounts  of  money  to  the  farmers.  The  farmers 
were  in  the  net.  All  that  remained  to  be  done  was  the 
drawing  in  of  the  net.  This  the  farm  trust  proceeded 
to  do. 

The  hard  times  of  1912  had  already  caused  a  fright- 
ful  slump   in   the   farm   markets.     Prices    were    now 


THE  GENERAL  STRIKE  207 

deliberately  pressed  down  to  bankruptcy,  while  the 
railroads,  with  extortionate  rates,  broke  the  back  of 
the  farmer-camel.  Thus  the  farmers  were  compelled 
to  borrow  more  and  more,  while  they  were  prevented 
from  paying  back  old  loans.  Then  ensued  the  great 
foreclosing  of  mortgages  and  enforced  collection  of 
notes.  The  farmers  simply  surrendered  the  land  to 
the  farm  trust.  There  was  nothing  else  for  them  to  do. 
And  having  surrendered  the  land,  the  farmers  next 
went  to  work  for  the  farm  trust,  becoming  managers, 
superintendents,  foremen,  and  common  laborers.  They 
worked  for  wages.  They  became  villeins,  in  short  — 
serfs  bound  to  the  soil  by  a  living  wage.  They  could 
not  leave  their  masters,  for  their  masters  composed  the 
Plutocracy.  They  could  not  go  to  the  cities,  for  there, 
also,  the  Plutocracy  was  in  control.  They  had  but 
one  alternative,  —  to  leave  the  soil  and  become  va- 
grants, in  brief,  to  starve.  And  even  there  they  were 
frustrated,  for  stringent  vagrancy  laws  were  passed  and 
rigidly  enforced. 

Of  course,  here  and  there,  farmers,  and  even  whole 
communities  of  farmers,  escaped  expropriation  by  vir- 
tue of  exceptional  corfditions.  But  they  were  merely 
strays  and  did  not  count,  and  they  were  gathered  in 
anyway  during  the  following  year.1 

Thus  it  was  that  in  the  fall  of  1912  the  socialist 

1  The  destruction  of  the  Roman  yeomanry  proceeded  far  less  rap- 
idly than  the  destruction  of  the  American  farmers  and  small  capital- 


208  THE  IRON  HEEL 

leaders,  with  the  exception  of  Ernest,  decided  that  the 
end  of  capitalism  had  come.  What  of  the  hard  times 
and  the  consequent  vast  array  of  the  unemployed; 
what  of  the  destruction  of  the  farmers  and- the  middle 
class;  and  what  of  the  decisive  defeat  administered 
all  along  the  line  to  the  labor  unions ;  the  socialists 
were  really  justified  in  believing  that  the  end  of  capital- 
ism had  come  and  in  themselves  throwing  down  the 
gauntlet  to  the  Plutocracy. 

Alas,  how .  we  underestimated  the  strength  of  the 
enemy !  Everywhere  the  socialists  proclaimed  their 
coming  victory  at  the  ballot-box,  while,  in  unmistak- 
able terms,  they  stated  the  situation.  The  Plutocracy 
accepted  the  challenge.  It  was  the  Plutocracy,  weigh- 
ing and  balancing,  that  defeated  us  by  dividing  our 
strength.  It  was  the  Plutocracy,  through  its  secret 
agents,  that  raised  the  cry  that  socialism  was  sacri- 
legious and  atheistic ;  it  was  the  Plutocracy  that 
whipped   the    churches,    and    especially   the   Catholic 

ists.  There  was  momentum  in  the  twentieth  century,  while;  there 
was  practically  none  in  ancient  Rome. 

Numbers  of  the  farmers,  impelled  by  an  insane  lust  for  the  soil, 
and  willing  to  show  what  beasts  they  could  become,  tried  to  escape 
expropriation  by  withdrawing  from  any  and  all  market-dealing. 
They  sold  nothing.  They  bought  nothing.  Among  themselves  a 
primitive  barter  began  to  spring  up.  Their  privation  and  hardships 
were  terrible,  but  they  persisted.  It  became  quite  a  movement,  in 
fact.  The  manner  in  which  they  were  beaten  was  unique  and  logical 
and  simple.  The  Plutocracy,  by  virtue  of  its  possession  of  the  gov- 
ernment, raised  their  taxes.  It  was  the  weak  joint  in  their  armor. 
Neither  buying  nor  selling,  they  had  no  money,  and  in  the  end  their 
land  was  sold  to  pay  the  taxes. 


THE  GENERAL  STRIKE  209 

Church,  into  line,  and  robbed  us  of  a  portion  of  the 
labor  vote.  And  it  was  the  Plutocracy,  through  its 
secret  agents  of  course,  that  encouraged  the  Grange 
Party  and  even  spread  it  to  the  cities  into  the  ranks 
of  the  dying  middle  class. 

Nevertheless  the  socialist  landslide  occurred.  But, 
instead  of  a  sweeping  victory  with  chief  executive 
officers  and  majorities  in  all  legislative  bodies,  we  found 
ourselves  in  the  minority.  It  is  true,  we  elected  fifty 
Congressmen;  but  when  they  took  their  seats  in  the 
spring  of  1913,  they  found  themselves  without  power 
of  any  sort.  Yet  they  were  more  fortunate  than  the 
Grangers,  who  captured  a  dozen  state  governments, 
and  who,  in  the  spring,  were  not  permitted  to  take 
possession  of  the  captured  offices.  The  incumbents 
refused  to  retire,  and  the  courts  were  in  the  hands  of 
the  Oligarchy.  But  this  is  too  far  in  advance  of  events. 
I  have  yet  to  tell  of  the  stirring  times  of  the  winter  of 
1912. 

The  hard  times  at  home  had  caused  an  immense 
decrease  in  consumption.  Labor,  out  of  work,  had  no 
wages  with  which  to  buy.  The  result  was  that  the 
Plutocracy  found  a  greater  surplus  than  ever  on  its 
hands.  This  surplus  it  was  compelled  to  dispose  of 
abroad,  and,  what  of  its  colossal  plans,  it  needed  money. 
Because  of  its  strenuous  efforts  to  dispose  of  the  sur- 
plus in  the  world  market,  the  Plutocracy  clashed  with 
Germany.     Economic  clashes  were  usually  succeeded 


210  THE  IRON  HEEL 

by  wars,  and  this  particular  clash  was  no  exception. 
The  great  German  war-lord  prepared,  and  so  did  the 
United  States  prepare. 

The  war-cloud  hovered  dark  and  ominous.  The 
stage  was  set  for  a  world-catastrophe,  for  in  ail  the 
world  were  hard  times,  labor  troubles,  perishing  middle 
classes,  armies  of  unemployed,  clashes  of  economic 
interests  in  the  world-market,  and  mutterings  and 
rumblings  of  the  socialist  revolution.1 

The  Oligarchy  wanted  the  war  with  Germany.  And 
it  wanted  the  war  for  a  dozen  reasons.  In  the  juggling 
of  events  such  a  war  would  cause,  in  the  reshuffling  of 
the  international  cards  and  the  making  of  new  treaties 

1  For  a  long  time  these  mutterings  and  rumblings  had  been  heard. 
As  far  back  as  1906  a.d.,  Lord  Avebury,  an  Englishman,  uttered  the 
following  in  the  House  of  Lords:  "  The  unrest  in  Europe,  the  spread 
of  socialism,  and  the  ominous  rise  of  Anarchism,  are  warnings  to  the 
governments  and  the  ruling  classes  that  the  condition  of  the  working 
classes  in  Europe  is  becoming  intolerable,  and  that  if  a  revolution  is  to 
be  avoided  some  steps  must  be  taken  to  increase  wages,  reduce  the  hoars 
of  labor,  and  lower  the  prices  of  the  necessaries  of  life."  The  Wall 
Street  Journal,  a  stock  gamesters'  publication,  in  commenting  upon 
Lord  Avebury' s  speech,  said:  "  These  words  were  spoken  by  an  aristo- 
crat and  a  member  of  the  most  conservative  body  in  all  Europe.  That 
gives  them  all  the  more  significance.  They  contain  more  valuable 
political  ecojiomy  than  is  to  be  found  in  most  of  the  books.  They  s 
note  of  warning.  Take  heed,  gentlemen  of  the  war  and  navy  depart- 
ments !  " 

At  the  same  time,  Sydney  Brooks,  writing  in  America,  in  Harper  s 
Weekly,  said:  "  You  will  not  hear  the  socialists  mentioned  in  Washing- 
ton. Why  should  you  ?  The  politicians  are  always  the  last  people 
in  this  country  to  see  what  is  going  on  under  their  noses.  They  will  jeer 
at  me  when  I  prophesy,  and  prop]*  'he  utmost  confidence,  that 

at  the  next  presidential  election  the  socialists  will  poll  over  a  million 
votes." 


THE  GENERAL  STRIKE  211 

and  alliances,  the  Oligarchy  had  much  to  gain.  And, 
furthermore,  the  war  would  consume  many  national 
surpluses,  reduce  the  armies  of  unemployed  that  men- 
aced all  countries,  and  give  the  Oligarchy  a  breathing 
space  in  which  to  perfect  its  plans  and  carry  them  out. 
Such  a  war  would  virtually  put  the  Oligarchy  in  pos- 
session of  the  world-market.  Also,  such  a  war  would 
create  a  large  standing  army  that  need  never  be  dis- 
banded, while  in  the  minds  of  the  people  would  be 
substituted  the  issue,  "America  versus  Germany,"  in 
place  of  "Socialism  versus  Oligarchy." 

And  truly  the  war  would  have  done  all  these  things 
had  it  not  been  for  the  socialists.  A  secret  meeting  of 
the  Western  leaders  was  held  in  our  four  tiny  rooms  in 
Pell  Street.  Here  was  first  considered  the  stand  the 
socialists  were  to  take.  It  was  not  the  first  time  we 
had  put  our  foot  down  upon  war,1  but  it  was  the  first 
time  we  had  done  so  in  the  United  States.  After  our 
secret  meeting  we  got  in  touch  with  the  national  or- 
ganization, and  soon  our  code  cables  were  passing  back 

1  It  was  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  a.d.,  that 
the  international  organization  of  the  socialists  finally  formulated  their 
long-maturing  policy  on  war.  Epitomized,  their  doctrine  was: 
"  Why  should  the  workingmen  of  one  country  fight  with  the  workingmen 
of  another  country  for  the  benefit  of  their  capitalist  masters  ?  " 

On  May  21,  1905  a.d.,  when  war  threatened  between. Austria  and 
Italy,  the  socialists  of  Italy,  Austria,  and  Hungary  held  a  conference 
at  Trieste,  and  threatened  a  general  strike  of  the  workingmen  of  both 
countries  in  case  war  was  declared.  This  was  repeated  the  following 
year,  when  the  "Morocco  Affair"  threatened  to  involve  France, 
Germany,  and  England. 


212  THE  IRON  HEEL 

and  forth  across  the  Atlantic  between  us  and  the 
International  Bureau. 

The  German  socialists  were  ready  to  act  with  us. 
There  were  over  five  million  of  them,  many  of  them 
in  the  standing  army,  and,  in  addition,  they  were  on 
friendly  terms  with  the  labor  unions.  In  both  coun- 
tries the  socialists  came  out  in  bold  declaration  against 
the  war  and  threatened  the  general  strike.  And  in  the 
meantime  they  made  preparation  for  the  general 
strike.  Furthermore,  the  revolutionary  parties  in  all 
countries  gave  public  utterance  to  the  socialist  principle 
of  international  peace  that  must  be  preserved  at  all 
hazards,  even  to  the  extent  of  revolt  and  revolution  at 
home. 

The  general  strike  was  the  one  great  victory  we 
American  socialists  won.  On  the  4th  of  December 
the  American  minister  was  withdrawn  from  the  German 
capital.  That  night  a  German  fleet  made  a  dash  on 
Honolulu,  sinking  three  American  cruisers  and  a 
revenue  cutter,  and  bombarding  the  city.  Next  day 
both  Germany  and  the  United  States  declared  war,  and 
within  an  hour  the  socialists  called  the  general  strike 
in  both  countries. 

For  the  first  time  the  German  war-lord  faced  the  men 
of  his  empire  who  made  his  empire  go.  Without  them 
he  could  not  run  his  empire.  The  novelty  of  the 
situation  lay  in  that  their  revolt  was  passive.  They 
did   not   fight.    They   did   nothing.     And   by   doing 


THE  GENERAL  STRIKE  213 

nothing  they  tied  their  war-lord's  hands.  He  would 
have  asked  for  nothing  better  than  an  opportunity  to 
loose  his  war-dogs  on  his  rebellious  proletariat.  But 
this  was  denied  him.  He  could  not  loose  his  war- 
dogs.  Neither  could  he  mobilize  his  army  to  go  forth 
to  war,  nor  could  he  punish  his  recalcitrant  subjects. 
Not  a  wheel  moved  in  his  empire.  Not  a  train  ran,  not 
a  telegraphic  message  went  over  the  wires,  for  the  teleg- 
raphers and  railroad  men  had  ceased  work  along  with 
the  rest  of  the  population. 

And  as  it  was  in  Germany,  so  it  was  in  the  United 
States.     At  last  organized  labor  had  learned  its  lesson. 
Beaten  decisively  on  its  own  chosen  field,  it  had  aban- 
doned that  field  and  come  over  to  the  political  field 
of  the  socialists;  for  the  general  strike  was  a  political 
strike.     Besides,   organized  labor  had  been  so  badly 
beaten  that  it  did  not  care.     It  joined  in  the  general 
strike  out  of  sheer  desperation.     The  workers  threw 
down  their  tools  and  left  their  tasks  by  the  millions. 
Especially  notable  were  the  machinists.     Their  heads 
were  bloody,  their  organization  had  apparently  been 
destroyed,  yet  out  they  came,  along  with  their  allies 
in  the  metal-working  trades. 

Even  the  common  laborers  and  all  unorganized  labor 
ceased  work.  The  strike  had  tied  everything  up  so 
that  nobody  could  work.  Besides,  the  women  proved 
to  be  the  strongest  promoters  of  the  strike.  They  set 
their  faces  against  the  war.     They  did  not  want  their 


214  THE  IRON  HEEL 

men  to  go  forth  to  die.  Then,  also,  the  idea  of  the 
general  strike  caught  the  mood  of  the  people.  It 
struck  their  sense  of  humor.  The  idea  was  infectious. 
The  children  struck  in  all  the  schools,  and  such  teachers 
as  came,  went  home  again  from  deserted  class  rooms. 
The  general  strike  took  the  form  of  a  great  national 
picnic.  And  the  idea  of  the  solidarity  of  labor,  so 
evidenced,  appealed  to  the  imagination  of  all.  And, 
finally,  there  was  no  danger  to  be  incurred  by  the 
colossal  frolic.  When  everybody  was  guilty,  how  was 
anybody  to  be  punished? 

The  United  States  was  paralyzed.  No  one  knew 
what  was  happening.  There  were  no  newspapers,  no 
letters,  no  despatches.  Every  community  was  as  com- 
pletely isolated  as  though  ten  thousand  miles  of  pri- 
meval wilderness  stretched  between  it  and  the  rest  of 
the  world.  For  that  matter,  the  world  had  ceased  to 
exist.  And  for  a  week  this  state  of  affairs  was  main- 
tained. 

In  San  Francisco  we  did  not  know  what  was  happening 
even  across  the  bay  in  Oakland  or  Berkeley.  The  effect 
on  one's  sensibilities  was  weird,  depressing.  It  seemed 
as  though  some  great  cosmic  thing  lay  dead.  The 
pulse  of  the  land  had  ceased  to  beat.  Of  a  truth  the 
nation  had  died.  There  were  no  wagons  rumbling  on 
the  streets,  no  factory  whistles,  no  hum  of  electricity 
in  the  air,  no  passing  of  street  cars,  no  cries  of  news- 
boys —  nothing   but   persons   who    at   rare   intervals 


THE  GENERAL  STRIKE  215 

went  by  like  furtive  ghosts,  themselves  oppressed  and 
made  unreal  by  the  silence. 

And  during  that  week  of  silence  the  Oligarchy  was 
taught  its  lesson.  And  well  it  learned  the  lesson.  The 
general  strike  was  a  warning.  It  should  never  occur 
again.     The  Oligarchy  would  see  to  that. 

At  the  end  of  the  week,  as  had  been  prearranged,  the 
telegraphers  of  Germany  and  the  United  States  returned 
to  their  posts.  Through  them  the  socialist  leaders  of 
both  countries  presented  their  ultimatum,  to  the  rulers. 
The  war  should  be  called  off,  or  the  general  strike  would 
continue.  It  did  not  take  long  to  come  to  an  under- 
standing. The  war  was  declared  off,  and  the  popula-  • 
tions  of  both  countries  returned  to  their  tasks. 

It  was  this  renewal  of  peace  that  brought  about  the 
alliance  between  Germany  and  the  United  States. 
In  reality,  this  was  an  alliance  between  the  Emperor 
and  the  Oligarchy,  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  their 
common  foe,  the  revolutionary  proletariat  of  both 
countries.  And  it  was  this  alliance  that  the  Oligarchy 
afterward  so  treacherously  broke  when  the  German 
socialists  rose  and  drove  the  war-lord  from  his  throne. 
It  was  the  very  thing  the  Oligarchy  had  played  for  — 
the  destruction  of  its  great  rival  in  the  world-market. 
With  the  German  Emperor  out  of  the  way,  Germany 
would  have  no  surplus  to  sell  abroad.  By  the  very 
nature  of  the  socialist  state,  the  German  population 
would   consume   all  that  it  produced.     Of   course,   it 


216  THE  IRON  HEEL 

would  trade  abroad  certain  things  it  produced  for 
things  it  did  not  produce ;  but  this  would  be  quite  differ- 
ent from  an  unconsumable  surplus. 

"I'll  wager  the  Oligarchy  finds  justification,"  Ernest 
said,  when  its  treachery  to  the  German  Emperor  be- 
came known.  "As  usual,  the  Oligarchy  will  believe 
it  has  done  right." 

And  sure  enough.  The  Oligarchy's  public  defence 
for  the  act  was  that  it  had  done  it  for  the  sake  of  the 
American  people  whose  interests  it  was  looking  out  for. 
It  had  flung  its  hated  rival  out  of  the  world-market  and 
enabled  us  to  dispose  of  our  surplus  in  that  market. 

"And  the  howling  folly  of  it  is  that  we  are  so  helpless 
that  such  idiots  really  are  managing  our  interests," 
was  Ernest's  comment.  "They  have  enabled  us  to 
sell  more  abroad,  which  means  that  we'll  be  compelled 
to  consume  less  at  home." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   BEGINNING  OF  THE   END 

As  early  as  January,  1913,  Ernest  saw  the  true  trend 
of  affairs,  but  he  could  not  get  his  brother  leaders  to 
see  the  vision  of  the  Iron  Heel  that  had  arisen  in  his 
brain.  They  were  too  confident.  Events  were  rush- 
ing too  rapidly  to  culmination.  A  crisis  had  come  in 
world  affairs.  The  American  Oligarchy  was  practically 
in  possession  of  the  world-market,  and  scores  of  coun- 
tries were  flung  out  of  that  market  with  unconsumable 
and  unsalable  surpluses  on  their  hands.  For  such 
countries  nothing  remained  but  reorganization.  They 
could  not  continue  their  method  of  producing  surpluses. 
The  capitalistic  system,  so  far  as  they  were  concerned, 
had  hopelessly  broken  down. 

The  reorganization  of  these  countries  took  the  form 
of  revolution.  It  was  a  time  of  confusion  and  violence. 
Everywhere  institutions  and  governments  were  crash- 
ing. Everywhere,  with  the  exception  of  two  or  three 
countries,  the  erstwhile  capitalist  masters  fought 
bitterly  for  their  possessions.  But  the  governments 
were  taken  away  from  them  by  the  militant  proletariat. 

217 


2  IS  THE  IRON  HEEL 

At  last  was  being  realized  Karl  Marx's  classic:  "The 
knell  of  private  capitalist  property  sounds.  The 
expropriators  are  expropriated."  .And  as  fast  as 
capitalistic  governments  crashed,  cooperative  com- 
monwealths arose  in  their  place. 

"Why  does  the  United  States  lag  behind?";  "Get 
busy,  you  American  revolutionists!";  "What's  the 
matter  with  America?"  —  were  the  messages  sent  to 
us  by  our  successful  comrades  in  other  lands.  But  we 
could  not  keep  up.  The  Oligarchy  stood  in  the  way. 
Its  bulk,  like  that  of  some  huge  monster,  blocked  our 
path. 

"Wait  till  we  take  office  in  the  spring,"  we  answered. 
"Then  you'll  see." 

Behind  this  lay  our  secret.  We  had  won  over  the 
Grangers,  and  in  the  spring  a  dozen  states  would  pass 
into  their  hands  by  virtue  of  the  elections  of  the  pre- 
ceding fall.  At  once  would  be  instituted  a  dozen 
cooperative  commonwealth  states.  After  that,  the 
rest  would  be  easy. 

"But  what  if  the  Grangers  fail  to  get  possession?" 
Ernest  demanded.  And  his  comrades  called  him  a 
calamity  howler. 

But  this  failure  to  get  possession  was  not  the  chief 
danger  that  Ernest  had  in  mind.  What  he  foresaw 
was  the  defection  of  the  great  labor  unions  and  the 
rise  of  the  castes. 

"Ghent  has    taught  the    oligarchs  how  to  do  it," 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END  219 

Ernest  said.  "I'll  wager  they've  made  a  text-book 
out  of  his  'Benevolent  Feudalism.'"  * 

Never  shall  I  forget  the  night  when,  after  a  hot  dis- 
cussion with  half  a  dozen  labor  leaders,  Ernest  turned 
to  me  and  said  quietly:  "That  settles  it.  The  Iron 
Heel  has  won.     The  end  is  in  sight." 

This  little  conference  in  our  home  was  unofficial ;  but 
Ernest,  like  the  rest  of  his  comrades,  was  working  for 
assurances  from  the  labor  leaders  that  they  would  call 
out  their  men  in  the  next  general  strike.  O'Connor,  the 
president  of  the  Association  of  Machinists,  had  been 
foremost  of  the  six  leaders  present  in  refusing  to  give 
such  assurance. 

"You  have  seen  that  you  were  beaten  soundly  at 
your  old  tactics  of  strike  and  boycott,"  Ernest  urged. 

O'Connor  and  the  others  nodded  their  heads. 

"And  you  saw  what  a  general  strike  would  do," 
Ernest  went  on.  "We  stopped  the  war  with  Germany. 
Never  was  there  so  fine  a  display  of  the  solidarity  and 
the  power  of  labor.  Labor  can  and  will  rule  the  world. 
If  you  continue  to  stand  with  us,  we'll  put  an  end  to 
the  reign  of  capitalism.     It  is  your  only  hope.     And 

1  "Our  Benevolent  Feudalism,"  a  book  published  in  1902  a.d.,  by 
W.  J.  Ghent.  It  has  always  been  insisted  that  Ghent  put  the  idea  of 
the  Oligarchy  into  the  minds  of  the  great  capitalists.  This  belief 
persists  throughout  the  literature  of  the  three  centuries  of  the  Iron 
Heel,  and  even  in  the  literature  of  the  first  century  of  the  Brotherhood 
of  Man.  To-day  we  know  better,  but  our  knowledge  does  not  over- 
come the  fact  that  Ghent  remains  the  most  abused  innocent  man  in 
all  history. 


220  THE  IRON  HEEL 

what  is  more,  you  know  it.  There  is  no  other  way  out. 
No  matter  what  you  do  under  your  old  tactics,  you  are 
doomed  to  defeat,  if  for  no  other  reason  because  the 
masters  control  the  courts."  ! 

"You  run  ahead  too  fast,"  O'Connor  answered.  "You 
don't  know  all  the  ways  out.  There  is  another  way  out. 
We  know  what  we're  about.  We're  sick  of  strikes. 
They've  got  us  beaten  that  way  to  a  frazzle.  But 
I  don't  think  we'll  ever  need  to  call  our  men  out 
again." 

"What  is  your  way  out?"  Ernest  demanded  bluntly. 

O'Connor  laughed  and  shook  his  head.  "I  can  tell 
you  this  much :  We've  not  been  asleep.  And  we're  not 
dreaming  now." 

1  As  a  sample  of  the  decisions  of  the  courts  adverse  to  labor,  the 
following  instances  are  given.  In  the  coal-mining  regions  the  em- 
ployment of  children  was  notorious.  In  1905  a.d.,  labor  succeeded 
in  getting  a  te,w  passed  in  Pennsylvania  providing  that  proof  of  the 
age  of  the  child  and  of  certain  educational  qualifications  must  accom- 
pany the  oath  of  the  parent.  This  was  promptly  declared  unconstitu- 
tional by  the  Luzerne  County  Court,  on  the  ground  that  it  violated  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment  in  that  it  discriminated  between  individuals 
of  the  same  class  —  namely,  children  above  fourteen  years  of  age 
and  children  below.  The  state  court  sustained  the  decision.  The 
New  York  Court  of  Special  Sessions,  in  1905  a.d.,  declared  unconsti- 
tutional the  law  prohibiting  minors  and  women  from  working  in  fac- 
tories after  nine  o'  clock  at  night,  the  ground  taken  being  that  such  a 
law  was  "class  legislation."  Again,  the  bakers  of  that  time  were 
terribly  overworked.  The  New  York  Legislature  passed  a  law  re- 
stricting work  in  bakeries  to  ten  hours  a  day.  In  1906  a.d.,  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States  declared  this  law  to  be  unconstitu- 
tional. In  part  the  decision  read :  "  There  is  no  reasonable  ground 
for  interfering  with  the  liberty  of  persons  or  the  right  of  free  contract  by 
determining  the  hours  of  labor  in  the  occupation  of  a  baker." 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  EUD  221 

"There's  nothing  to  be  afraid  of,  or  ashamed  of,  I 
hope,"  Ernest  challenged. 

"I  guess  we  know  our  business  best,"  was  the  re- 
tort. 

"It's  a  dark  business,  from  the  way  you  hide  it," 
Ernest  said  with  growing  anger. 

"We've  paid  for  our  experience  in  sweat  and  blood, 
and  we've  earned  all  that's  coming  to  us,"  was  the 
reply.     "Charity  begins  at  home." 

"If  you're  afraid  to  tell  me  your  way  out,  I'll  tell  it 
to  you."  Ernest's  blood  was  up.  "You're  going  in  for 
grab-sharing.  You've  made  terms  with  the  enemy, 
that's  what  you've  done.  You've  sold  out  the  cause 
of  labor,  of  all  labor.  You  are  leaving  the  battle-field 
like  cowards." 

"I'm  not  saying  anything,"  O'Connor  answered 
sullenly.  "Only  I  guess  we  know  what's  best  for  us  a 
little  bit  better  than  you  do." 

"And  you  don't  care  a  cent  for  what  is  best  for  the 
rest  of  labor.     You  kick  it  into  the  ditch." 

"I'm  not  saying  anything,"  O'Connor  replied,  "ex- 
cept that  I'm  president  of  the  Machinists'  Association, 
and  it's  my  business  to  consider  the  interests  of  the 
men  I  represent,  that's  all." 

And  then,  when  the  labor  leaders  had  left,  Ernest, 
with  the  calmness  of  defeat,  outlined  to  me  the  course 
of  events  to  come. 

"The  socialists  used  to  foretell  with  joy,"  he  said, 


222  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"  the  coming  of  the  day  when  organized  labor,  de- 
feated on  the  industrial  field,  would  come  over  on  to  the 
political  field.  Well,  the  Iron  Heel  has  defeated  the 
labor  unions  on  the  industrial  field  and  driven  them 
over  to  the  political  field;  and  instead  of  this  being 
joj^ful  for  us,  it  will  be  a  source  of  grief.  The  Iron  Heel 
learned  its  lesson.  We  showed  it  our  power  in  the 
general  strike.  It  has  taken  steps  to  prevent  another 
general  strike." 

"But  how?"  I  asked. 

"Simply  by  subsidizing  the  great  unions,  They 
won't  join  in  the  next  general  strike.  Therefore  it 
won't  be  a  general  strike." 

"But  the  Iron  Heel  can't  maintain  so  costly  a  pro- 
gramme forever,"  I  objected.  „ 

"Oh,  it  hasn't  subsidized  all  of  the  unions.  That's 
not  necessary.  Here  is  what  is  going  to  happen. 
Wages  are  going  to  be  advanced  and  hours  shortened 
in  the  railroad  unions,  the  iron  and  steel  workers 
unions,  and  the  engineer  and  machinist  unions.  In 
these  unions  more  favorable  conditions  will  continue 
to  prevail.  Membership  in  these  unions  will  become 
like  seats  in  Paradise." 

"Still  I  don't  see,"  I  objected.  "What  is  to  become 
of  the  other  unions  ?  There  are  far  more  unions  outside 
of  this  combination  than  in  it." 

"The  other  unions  will  be  ground  out  of  existence  — 
all  of  them.     For,   don't  you  see,  the  railway  men, 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END  223 

machinists  and  engineers,  iron  and  steel  workers,  do  all 
of  the  vitally  essential  work  in  our  machine  civilization. 
Assured  of  their  faithfulness,  the  Iron  Heel  can  snap 
its  fingers  at  all  the  rest  of  labor.  Iron,  steel,  coal, 
machinery,  and  transportation  constitute  the  back- 
bone of  the  whole  industrial  fabric." 

"But  coal?"  I  queried.  "There  are  nearly  a  mill- 
ion coal  miners." 

"They  are  practically  unskilled  labor.  They  will 
not  count.  Their  wages  will  go  down  and  their  hours 
will  increase.  They  will  be  slaves  like  all  the  rest  of  us, 
and  they  will  become  about  the  most  bestial  of  all  of 
us.  They  will  be  compelled  to  work,  just  as  the  farmers 
are  compelled  to  work  now  for  the  masters  who  robbed 
them  of  their  land.  And  the  same  with  all  the  other 
unions  outside  the  combination.  Watch  them  wobble 
and  go  to  pieces,  and  their  members  become  slaves 
driven  to  toil  by  empty  stomachs  and  the  law  of  the 
land. 

"Do  you  know  what  will  happen  to  Farley  1  and  his 
strike-breakers?  I'll  tell  you.  Strike-breaking  as  an 
occupation  will  cease.  There  won't  be  any  more 
strikes.     In    place    of    strikes    will    be    slave    revolts. 

1  James  Farley —  a  notorious  strike-breaker  of  the  period.  A 
man  more  courageous  than  ethical,  and  of  undeniable  ability.  He 
rose  high  under  the  rule  of  the  Iron  Heel  and  finally  was  translated  into 
the  oligarch  class.  He  was  assassinated  in  1932  by  Sarah  Jenkins, 
whose  husband,  thirty  years  before,  had  been  killed  by  Farley's  strike- 
breakers. 


224  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Farley  and  his  gang  will  be  promoted  to  slave-driving. 
Oh,  it  won't  be  called  that ;  it  will  be  called  enforcing 
the  law  of  the  land  that  compels  the  laborers  to  work. 
It  simply  prolongs  the  fight,  this  treachery  of  the  big 
unions.  Heaven  only  knows  now  where  and  when  the 
Revolution  will  triumph." 

"But  with  such  a  powerful  combination  as  the  Oli- 
garchy and  the  big  unions,  is  there  any  reason  to 
believe  that  the  Revolution  will  ever  triumph?"  I 
queried.     "May  not  the  combination  endure  forever?" 

He  shook  his  head.  "One  of  our  generalizations  is 
that  every  system  founded  upon  class  and  caste  con- 
tains within  itself  the  germs  of  its  own  decay.  When 
a  system  is  founded  upon  class,  how  can  caste  be  pre- 
vented ?  The  Iron  Heel  will  not  be  able  to  prevent  it, 
and  in  the  end  caste  will  destroy  the  Iron  Heel.  The 
oligarchs  have  already  developed  caste  among  them- 
selves ;  but  wait  until  the  favored  unions  develop  caste. 
The  Iron  Heel  will  use  all  its  power  to  prevent  it,  but 
it  will  fail. 

"In  the  favored  unions  are  the  flower  of  the  American 
workingmen.  They  are  strong,  efficient  men.  They 
have  become  members  of  those  unions  through  com- 
petition for  place.  Every  fit  workman  in  the  United 
States  will  be  possessed  by  the  ambition  to  become  a 
member  of  the  favored  unions.  The  Oligarchy  will 
encourage  such  ambition  and  the  consequent  compe- 
tition.    Thus  will  the  strong  men,  who  might  else  be 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END  225 

revolutionists,  be  won  away  and  their  strength  used 
to  bolster  the  Oligarchy. 

"On  the  other  hand,  the  labor  castes,  the  members 
of  the  favored  unions,  will  strive  to  make  their  organ- 
izations into  close  corporations.  And  they  will  suc- 
ceed. Membership  in  the  labor  castes  will  become 
hereditary.  Sons  will  succeed  fathers,  and  there  will 
be  no  inflow  of  new  strength  from  that  eternal  reser- 
voir of  strength,  the  common  people.  This  will  mean 
deterioration  of  the  labor  castes,  and  in  the  end  they 
will  become  weaker  and  weaker.  At  the  same  time,  as 
an  institution,  they  will  become  temporarily  all-powerful. 
They  will  be  like  the  guards  of  the  palace  in  old  Rome, 
and  there  will  be  palace  revolutions  whereby  the  labor 
castes  will  seize  the  reins  of  power.  And  there  will 
be  counter-palace  revolutions  of  the  oligarchs,  and  some- 
times the  one,  and  sometimes  the  other,  will  be  in  power. 
And  through  it  all  the  inevitable  caste- weakening  will 
go  on,  so  that  in  the  end  the  common  people  will  come 
into  their  own." 

This  foreshadowing  of  a  slow  social  evolution  was 
made  when  Ernest  was  first  depressed  by  the  defection 
of  the  great  unions.  I  never  agreed  with  him  in  it, 
and  I  disagree  now,  as  I  write  these  lines,  more  heartily 
than  ever ;  for  even  now,  though  Ernest  is  gone,  we  are 
on  the  verge  of  the  revolt  that  will  sweep  all  oligarchies 
away.  Yet  I  have  here  given  Ernest's  prophecy  be- 
cause it  was  his  prophecy.     In  spite  of  his  belief  in  it, 


226  TEE  IRON  HEEL 

he  worked  like  a  giant  against  it,  and  he,  more  than 
any  man,  has  made  possible  the  revolt  that  even  now 
waits  the  signal  to  burst  forth.1 

"But  if  the  Oligarchy  persists,"  I  asked  him  that 
evening,  "what  will  become  of  the  great  surpluses  that 
will  fall  to  its  share  every  year?" 

"The  surpluses  will  have  to  be  expended  somehow," 
he  answered;  "and  trust  the  oligarchs  to  find  a  way. 
Magnificent  roads  will  be  built.  There  will  be  great 
achievements  in  science,  and  especially  in  art.  When 
the  oligarchs  have  completely  mastered  the  people,  they 
will  have  time  to  spare  for  other  things.  They  will 
become  worshippers  of  beauty.  They  will  become  art- 
lovers.  And  under  their  direction,  and  generously  re- 
warded, will  toil  the  artists.  The  result  will  be  great 
art ;  for  no  longer,  as  up  to  yesterday,  will  the  artists 
pander  to  the  bourgeois  taste  of  the  middle  class.  It 
will  be  great  art,  I  tell  you,  and  wonder  cities  will  arise 
that  will  make  tawdry  and  cheap  the  cities  of  old  time. 
And  in  these  cities  will  the  oligarchs  dwell  and  worship 
beauty.2 

"  Thus  will  the  surplus  be  constantly  expended  while 

1  Everhard's  social  foresight  was  remarkable.  As  clearly  as  in  the 
light  of  past  events,  he  saw  the  defection  of  the  favored  unions,  the 
rise  and  the  slow  decay  of  the  labor  castes,  and  the  struggle  between 
the  decaying  oligarchs  and  labor  castes  for  control  of  the  great  gov- 
ernmental machine. 

2  We  cannot  but  marvel  at  Everhard's  foresight.  Before  ever  the 
thought  of  wonder  cities  like  Ardis  and  Asgard  entered  the  minds  of 
the  oligarchs,  Everhard  saw  those  cities  and  the  inevitable  necessity 
for  their  creation. 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END  227 

labor  does  the  work.  The  building  of  these  great  works 
and  cities  will  give  a  starvation  ration  to  millions  of 
common  laborers,  for  the  enormous  bulk  of  the  surplus 
will  compel  an  equally  enormous  expenditure,  and  the 
oligarchs  will  build  for  a  thousand  years  —  ay,  for  ten 
thousand  years.  They  will  build  as  the  Egyptians  and 
the  Babylonians  never  dreamed  of  building ;  and  when 
the  oligarchs  have  passed  away,  their  great  roads  and 
their  wonder  cities  will  remain  for  the  brotherhood  of 
labor  to  tread  upon  and  dwell  within.1 

" These  things  the  oligarchs  will  do  because  they  can- 
not help  doing  them.  These  great  works  will  be  the 
form  their  expenditure  of  the  surplus  will  take,  and  in 
the  same  way  that  the  ruling  classes  of  Egypt  of  long 
ago  expended,  the  surplus  they  robbed  from  the  people 
by  the  building  of  temples  and  pyramids.  Under  the 
oligarchs  will  flourish,  not  a  priest  class,  but  an  artist 
class.  And  in  place  of  the  merchant  class  of  bour- 
geoisie will  be  the  labor  castes.  And  beneath  will  be 
the  abyss,  wherein  will  fester  and  starve  and  rot,  and 
ever  renew  itself,  the  common  people,  the  great  bulk  of 
the  population.  And  in  the  end,  who  knows  in  what 
day,  the  common  people  will  rise  up  out  of  the  abyss ; 


1  And  since  that  day  of  prophecy,  have  passed  away  the  three  cen- 
turies of  the  Iron  Heel  and  the  four  centuries  of  the  Brotherhood  of 
Man,  and  to-day  we  tread  the  roads  and  dwell  in  the  cities  that  the 
oligarchs  built.  It  is  true,  we  are  even  now  building  still  more  wonder- 
ful wonder  cities,  but  the  wonder  cities  of  the  oligarchs  endure,  and 
I  write  these  lines  in  Ardis,  one  of  the  most  wonderful  of  them  all. 


228  THE  IRON  HEEL 

the  labor  castes  and  the  Oligarchy  will  crumble  away; 
and  then,  at  last,  after  the  travail  of  the  centuries,  will 
it  be  the  day  of  the  common  man.  I  had  thought  to  see 
that  day ;  but  now  I  know  that  I  shall  never  see  it." 

He  paused  and  looked  at  me,  and  added : 

"Social  evolution  is  exasperatingly  slow,  isn't  it, 
sweetheart?" 

My  arms  were  about  him,  and  his  head  was  on  my 
breast. 

"Sing  me  to  sleep,"  he  murmured  whimsically.  "I 
have  had  a  visioning,  and  I  wish  to  forget." 


CHAPTER  XV 

LAST  DAYS 

It  /was  near  the  end  of  January,  1913,  that  the 
changed  attitude  of  the  Oligarchy  toward  the  favored 
unions  was  made  public.  The  newspapers  published 
information  of  an  unprecedented  rise  in  wages  and 
shortening  of  hours  for  the  railroad  employees,  the 
iron  and  steel  workers,  and  the  engineers  and  machin- 
ists. But  the  whole  truth  was  not  told.  The  oligarchs 
did  not  dare  permit  the  telling  of  the  whole  truth. 
In  reality,  the  wages  had  been  raised  much  higher, 
and  the  privileges  were  correspondingly  greater.  All 
this  was  secret,  but  secrets  will  out.  Members  of  the 
favored  unions  told  their  wives,  arid  the  wives  gossiped, 
and  soon  all  the  labor  world  knew  what  had  happened. 

It  was  merely  the  logical  development  of  what  in  the 
nineteenth  century  had  been  known  as  grab-sharing. 
In  the  industrial  warfare  of  that  time,  profit-sharing 
had  been  tried.  That  is,  the  capitalists  had  striven  to 
placate  the  workers  by  interesting  them  financially 
in  their  work.  But  profit-sharing,  as  a  system,  was 
ridiculous  and  impossible.  Profit-sharing  could  be 
successful  only  in  isolated  cases  in  the  midst  of  a  system 

229 


230  THE  IRON  HEEL 

of  industrial  strife ;  for  if  all  labor  and  all  capital  shared 
profits,  the  same  conditions  would  obtain  as  did  obtain 
when  there  was  no  profit-sharing. 

So,  out  of  the  unpractical  idea  of  profit-sharing,  arose 
the  practical  idea  of  grab-sharing.  "Give  us  more  pay 
and  charge  it  to  the  public,"  was  the  slogan  of  the  strong 
unions.  And  here  and  there  this  selfish  policy  worked 
successfully.  In  charging  it  to  the  public,  it  was 
charged  to  the  great  mass  of  unorganized  labor  and  of 
weakly  organized  labor.  These  workers  actually  paid 
the  increased  wages  of  their  stronger  brothers  who  were 
members  of  unions  that  were  labor  monopolies.  This 
idea,  as  I  say,  was  merely  carried  to  its  logical  conclu- 
sion, on  a  large  scale,  by  the  combination  of  the  oli- 
garchs and  the  favored  unions.1 

As  soon  as  the  secret  of  the  defection  of  the  favored 
unions  leaked  out,  there  were  rumblings  and  mutter- 
ings  in  the  labor  world.  Next,  the  favored  unions  with- 
drew from  the  international   organizations  and  broke 

1  All  the  railroad  unions  entered  into  this  combination  with  the 
oligarchs,  and  it  is  of  interest  to  note  that  the  first  definite  application 
of  the  policy  of  profit-grabbing  was  made  by  a  railroad  union  in  the 
nineteenth  century  a.d.,  namely,  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive 
Engineers.  P.  M.  Arthur  was  for  twenty  years  Grand  Chief  of  the 
Brotherhood.  After  the  strike  on  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  in 
IS77,  he  broached  a  scheme  to  have  the  Locomotive  Engineers 
make  terms  with  the  railroads  and  to  "go  it  alone"  so  far  as  the 
rest  of  the  labor  unions  were  concerned.  This  scheme  was  eminently 
successful.  It  was  as  successful  as  it  was  selfish,  and  out  of  it  was 
coined  the  word  "arthurization,"  to  denote  grab-sharing  on  the 
part  of  labor  unions.  This  word  "arthurization"  has  long  puzzled 
the  etymologists,  but  its  derivation,  I  hope,  is  now  made  clear. 


LAST  DAYS  231 

off  all  affiliations.  Then  came  trouble  and  violence. 
The  members  of  the  favored  unions  were  branded  as 
traitors,  and  in  saloons  and  brothels,  on  the  streets  and 
at  work,  and,  in  fact,  everywhere,  they  were  assaulted 
by  the  comrades  they  had  so  treacherously  deserted. 

Countless  heads  were  broken,  and  there  were  many 
killed.  No  member  of  the  favored  unions  was  safe. 
They  gathered  together  in  bands  in  order  to  go  to  work 
or  to  return  from  work.  They  walked  always  in  the 
middle  of  the  street.  On  the  sidewalk  they  were  liable 
to  have  their  skulls  crushed  by  bricks  and  cobblestones 
thrown  from  windows  and  house-tops.  They  were 
permitted  to  carry  weapons,  and  the  authorities  aided 
them  in  every  way.  Their  persecutors  were  sentenced 
to  long  terms  in  prison,  where  they  were  harshly 
treated ;  while  no  man,  not  a  member  of  the  favored 
unions,  was  permitted  to  carry  weapons.  Violation  of 
this  law  was  made  a  high  misdemeanor  and  punished 
accordingly. 

Outraged  labor  continued  to  wreak  vengeance  on 
the  traitors.  Caste  lines  formed  automatically.  The 
children  of  the  traitors  were  persecuted  by  the  children 
of  the  workers  who  had  been  betrayed,  until  it  was 
impossible  for  the  former  to  play  on  the  streets  or  to 
attend  the  public  schools.  Also,  the  wives  and  families 
of  the  traitors  were  ostracized,  while  the  corner  gro- 
ceryman  who  sold  provisions  to  them  was  boycotted. 

As  a  result,  driven  back  upon  themselves  from  every 


232  THE  IRON  HEEL 

side,  the  traitors  and  their  families  became  clannish. 
Finding  it  impossible  to  dwell  in  safety  in  the  midst  of 
the  betrayed  proletariat,  they  moved  into  new  locali- 
ties inhabited  by  themselves  alone.  In  this  they  were 
favored  by  the  oligarchs.  Good  dwellings,  modern  and 
sanitary,  were  built  for  them,  surrounded  by  spacious 
yards,  and  separated  here  and  there  by  parks  and 
playgrounds.  Their  children  attended  schools  espe- 
cially built  for  them,  and  in  these  schools  manual  train- 
ing and  applied  science  were  specialized  upon.  Thus,  and 
unavoidably,  at  the  very  beginning,  out  of  this  segre- 
gation arose  caste.  The  members  of  the  favored  unions 
became  the  aristocracy  of  labor.  They  were  set  apart 
from  the  rest  of  labor.  They  were  better  housed,  better 
clothed,  better  fed,  better  treated.  They  were  grab- 
sharing  with  a  vengeance. 

In  the  meantime,  the  rest  of  the  working  class  was 
more  harshly  treated.  Many  little  privileges  were 
taken  away  from  it,  while  its  wages  and  its  standard  of 
living  steadily  sank  down.  Incidentally,  its  public 
schools  deteriorated,  and  education  slowly  ceased  to  be 
compulsory.  The  increase  in  the  younger  generation 
of  children  who  could  not  read  nor  write  was  perilous. 

The  capture  of  the  world-market  by  the  United  States 
had  disrupted  the  rest  of  the  world.  Institutions  and 
governments  were  everywhere  crashing  or  transform- 
ing. Germany,  Italy,  France,  Australia,  and  New 
Zealand    were     busy    forming     cooperative    common- 


LAST  DAYS  233 

wealths.  The  British  Empire  was  falling  apart. 
England's  hands  were  full.  In  India  revolt  was  in  full 
swing.  The  cry  in  all  Asia  was, ' '  Asia  for  the  Asiatics  ! " 
And  behind  this  cry  was  Japan,  ever  urging  and  aiding 
the  yellow  and  brown  races  against  the  white.  And 
while  Japan  dreamed  of  continental  empire  and  strove 
to  realize  the  dream,  she  suppressed  her  own  prole- 
tarian revolution.  It  was  a  simple  war  of  the  castes, 
Coolie  versus  Samurai,  and  the  coolie  socialists  were 
executed  by  tens  of  thousands.  Forty  thousand  were 
killed  in  the  street-fighting  of  Tokio  and  in  the  futile 
assault  on  the  Mikado's  palace.  Kobe  was  a  shambles ; 
the  slaughter  of  the  cotton  operatives  by  machine-guns 
became  classic  as  the  most  terrific  execution  ever 
achieved  by  modern  war  machines.  Most  savage  of  all 
was  the  Japanese  Oligarchy  that  arose.  Japan  domi- 
nated the  East,  and  took  to  herself  the  whole  Asiatic 
portion  of  the  world-market,  with  the  exception  of 
India. 

England  managed  to  crush  her  own  proletarian  revo- 
lution and  to  hold  on  to  India,  though  she  was  brought 
to  the  verge  of  exhaustion.  Also,  she  was  compelled 
to  let  her  great  colonies  slip  away  from  her.  So  it 
was  that  the  socialists  succeeded  in  making  Australia 
and  New  Zealand  into  cooperative  commonwealths. 
And  it  was  for  the  same  reason  that  Canada  was  lost 
to  the  mother  country.  But  Canada  crushed  her  own 
socialist  revolution,  being  aided  in  this  by  the  Iron 


111 


234  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Heel.  At  the  same  time,  the  Iron  Heel  helped  Mexico 
and  Cuba  to  put  down  revolt.  The  result  was  that  the 
Iron  Heel  was  firmly  established  in  the  New  World. 
It  had  welded  into  one  compact  political  mass  the 
whole  of  North  America  from  the  Panama  Canal  to 
the  Arctic  Ocean. 

And  England,  at  the  sacrifice  of  her  great  colonies, 
had  succeeded  only  in  retaining  India.  But  this  was 
no  more  than  temporary.  The  struggle  with  Japan  and 
the  rest  of  Asia  for  India  was  merely  delayed.  England 
was  destined  shortly  to  lose  India,  while  behind  that 
event  loomed  the  struggle  between  a  united  Asia  and 
the  world. 

And  "while  all  the  world  was  torn  with  conflict,  we  of 
the  United  States  were  not  placid  and  peaceful.  The 
defection  of  the  great  unions  had  prevented  our  pro- 
letarian revolt,  but  violence  was  everywhere.  In 
addition  to  the  labor  troubles,  and  the  discontent  of 
the  farmers  and  of  the  remnant  of  the  middle  class,  a 
religious  revival  had  blazed  up.  An  offshoot  of  the 
Seventh  Day  Adventists  sprang  into  sudden  promi- 
nence, proclaiming  the  end  of  the  world. 

"Confusion  thrice  confounded!"  Ernest  cried. 
"How  can  we  hope  for  solidarity  with  all  these  cross 
purposes  and  conflicts?" 

And  truly  the  religious  revival  assumed  formidable 
proportions.  The  people,  what  of  their  wretchedness, 
and   of  their   disappointment   in   all   things   earthly, 


LAST  DAYS  235 

were  ripe  and  eager  for  a  heaven  where  industrial 
tyrants  entered  no  more  than  camels  passed  through 
needle-eyes.  Wild-eyed  itinerant  preachers  swarmed 
over  the  land ;  and  despite  the  prohibition  of  the  civil 
authorities,  and  the  persecution  for  disobedience,  the 
flames  of  religious  frenzy  were  fanned  by  countless 
camp-meetings. 

It  was  the  last  days,  they  claimed,  the  beginning  of 
the  end  of  the  world.  The  four  winds  had  been  loosed. 
God  had  stirred  the  nations  to  strife.  It  was  a  time 
of  visions  and  miracles,  while  seers  and  prophetesses 
were  legion.  The  people  ceased  work  by  hundreds  of 
thousands  and  fled  to  the  mountains,  there  to  await  the 
imminent  coming  of  God  and  the  rising  of  the  hundred 
and  forty  and  four  thousand  to  heaven.  But  in  the 
meantime  God  did  not  come,  and  they  starved  to  death 
in  great  numbers.  In  their  desperation  they  ravaged 
the  farms  for  food,  and  the  consequent  tumult  and 
anarchy  in  the  country  districts  but  increased  the 
woes  of  the  poor  expropriated  farmers. 

Also,  the  farms  and  warehouses  were  the  property  of 
the  Iron  Heel.  Armies  of  troops  were  put  into  the 
field,  and  the  fanatics  were  herded  back  at  the  bayonet 
point  to  their  tasks  in  the  cities.  There  they  broke  out 
in  ever  recurring  mobs  and  riots.  Their  leaders  were, 
executed  for  sedition  or  confined  in  madhouses.  Those 
who  were  executed  went  to  their  deaths  with  all  the  glad- 
ness of  martyrs.  *  It  was  a  time  of  madness.     The  unrest 


236  THE  IRON  HEEL 

spread.  In  the  swamps  and  deserts  and  waste  places, 
from  Florida  to  Alaska,  the  small  groups  of  Indians 
that  survived  were  dancing  ghost  dances  and  waiting 
the  coming  of  a  Messiah  of  their  oWn. 

And  through  it  all,  with  a  serenity  and  certitude  that 
was  terrifying,  continued  to  rise  the  form  of  that  mon- 
ster of  the  ages,  the  Oligarchy.  With  iron  hand  and 
iron  heel  it  mastered  the  surging  millions,  out  of  confu- 
sion brought  order,  out  of  the  very  chaos  wrought  its 
own  foundation  and  structure. 

" Just  wait  till  we  get  in,"  the  Grangers  said  — 
Calvin  said  it  to  us  in  our  Pell  Street  quarters.  "Look 
at  the  states  we've  captured.  With  you  socialists  to 
back  us,  we'll  make  them  sing  another  song  when  we 
take  office." 

"The  millions  of  the  discontented  and  the  impover- 
ished are  ours,"  the  socialists  said.  "The  Grangers 
have  come  over  to  us,  the  farmers,  the  middle  class, 
and  the  laborers.  The  capitalist  system  will  fall  to 
pieces.  In  another  month  we  send  fifty  men  to  Con- 
gress. Two  years  hence  every  office  will  be  ours, 
from  the  President  down  to  the  local  dog-catcher." 

To  all  of  which  Ernest  would  shake  his  head  and  say : 

"How  many  rifles  have  you  got?  Do  you  know 
where  you  can  get  plenty  of  lead  ?  When  it  comes  to 
powder,  chemical  mixtures  are  better  than  mechanical 
mixtures,  you  take  my  word." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   END 

When  it  came  time  for  Ernest  and  me  to  go  to  Wash- 
ington, father  did  not  accompany  us.  He  had  become 
enamoured  of  proletarian  life.  He  looked  upon  our 
slum  neighborhood  as  a  great  sociological  laboratory, 
and  he  had  embarked  upon  an  apparently  endless  orgy 
of  investigation.  He  chummed  with  the  laborers,  and 
was  an  intimate  in  scores  of  homes.  Also,  he  worked  at 
odd  jobs,  and  the  work  was  play  as  well  as  learned 
investigation,  for  he  delighted  in  it  and  was  always 
returning  home  with  copious  notes  and  bubbling  over 
with  new  adventures.     He  was  the  perfect  scientist. 

There  was  no  need  for  his  working  at  all,  because 
Ernest  managed  to  earn  enough  from  his  translating 
to  take  care  of  the  three  of  us.  But  father  insisted 
on  pursuing  his  favorite  phantom,  and  a  protean  phan- 
tom it  was,  judging  from  the  jobs  he  worked  at.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  evening  he  brought  home  his  street 
pedler's  outfit  of  shoe-laces  and  suspenders,  nor  the 
time  I  went  into  the  little  corner  grocery  to  make  some 
purchase  and  had  him  wait  on  me.     After  that  I  was 

237 


238  THE  IRON  HEEL 

not  surprised  when  he  tended  bar  for  a  week  in  the 
saloon  across  the  street.  He  worked  as  a  night  watch- 
man, hawked  potatoes  on  the  street,  pasted  labels 
in  a  cannery  warehouse,  was  utility  man  in  a  paper- 
box  factory,  and  water-carrier  for  a  street  railway 
construction  gang,  and  even  joined  the  Dishwashers' 
Union  just  before  it  fell  to  pieces. 

I  think  the  Bishop's  example,  so  far  as  wearing 
apparel  was  concerned,  must  have  fascinated  father, 
for  he  wore  the  cheap  cotton  shirt  of  the  laborer  and  the 
overalls  with  the  narrow  strap  about  the  hips.  Yet  one 
habit  remained  to  him  from  the  old  life ;  he  always 
dressed  for  dinner,  or  supper,  rather. 

I  could  be  happy  anywhere  with  Ernest ;  and 
father's  happiness  in  our  changed  circumstances 
rounded  out  my  own  happiness. 

"When  I  was  a  boy,"  father  said,  "I  was  very  curi- 
ous. I  wanted  to  know  why  things  were  and  how 
they  came  to  pass.  That  was  why  I  became  a  physi- 
cist. The  life  in  me  to-day  is  just  as  curious  as  it  was 
in  my  boyhood,  and  it's  the  being  curious  that  makes 
life  worth  living." 

Sometimes  he  ventured  north  of  Market  Street  into 
the  shopping  and  theatre  district,  where  he  sold  papers, 
ran  errands,  and  opened  cabs.  There,  one  day,  clos- 
ing a  cab,  he  encountered  Mr.  Wickson.  In  high  glee 
father  described  the  incident  to  us  that  evening. 

"  Wickson  looked  at  me  sharply  when  I  closed  the 


THE  END  239 

door  on  him,  and  muttered,  'Well,  I'll  be  damned.' 
Just  like  that  he  said  it,  'Well,  I'll  be  damned.'  His 
face  turned  red  and  he  was  so  confused  that  he  forgot 
to  tip  me.  But  he  must  have  recovered  himself 
quickly,  for  the  cab  hadn't  gone  fifty  feet  before  it 
turned  around  and  came  back.  He  leaned  out  of  the 
door. 

"'Look  here,  Professor,'  he  said,  'this  is  too  much. 
What  can  I  do  for  you?' 

"'I  closed  the  cab  door  for  you,'  I  answered.  'Ac- 
cording to  common  custom  you  might  give  me  a  dime.' 

'"Bother  that!'  he  snorted.  'I  mean  something 
substantial.' 

"He  was  certainly  serious  —  a  twinge  of  ossified 
conscience  or  something;  and  so  I  considered  with 
grave  deliberation  for  a  moment. 

"His  face  was  quite  expectant  when  I  began  my 
answer,  but  you  should  have  seen  it  when  I  finished. 

'"You  might  give  me  back  my  home,'  I  said,  'and 
my  stock  in  the  Sierra  Mills.'" 

Father  paused. 

"What  did  he  say?"   I  questioned  eagerly. 

"What  could  he  say?''  He  said  nothing.  But  I 
said,  'I  hope  you  are  happy.'  He  looked  at  me  curi- 
ously.    'Tell  me,  are  you  happy?'    I  asked. 

"He  ordered  the  cabman  to  drive  on,  and  went  away 
swearing  horribly.  And  he  didn't  give  me  the  dime, 
much  less  the  home  and  stock;   so  you  see,  my  dear, 


240  THE  IRON  HEEL 

your  father's  street-arab  career  is  beset  with  disap- 
pointments." 

And  so  it  was  that  father  kept  on  at  our  Pell  Street 
quarters,  while  Ernest  and  I  went  to  Washington. 
Except  for  the  final  consummation,  the  old  order  had 
passed  away,  and  the  final  consummation  was  nearer 
than  I  dreamed.  Contrary  to  our  expectation,  no* 
obstacles  were  raised  to  prevent  the  socialist  Congress- 
men from  taking  their  seats.  Everything  went 
smoothly,  and  I  laughed  at  Ernest  when  he  looked 
upon  the  very  smoothness  as  something  ominous. 

We  found  our  socialist  comrades  confident,  opti- 
mistic of  their  strength  and  of  the  things  they  would 
accomplish.  A  few  Grangers  who  had  been  elected  to 
Congress  increased  our  strength,  and  an  elaborate  pro- 
gramme of  what  was  to  be  done  was  prepared  by  the 
united  forces.  In  all  of  which  Ernest  joined  loyally  and 
energetically,  though  he  could  not  forbear,  now  and 
again,  from  saying,  apropos  of  nothing  in  particular, 
"When  it  comes  to  powder,  chemical  mixtures  are 
better  than  mechanical  mixtures,  you  take  my  word." 

The  trouble  arose  first  with  the  Grangers  in  the  va- 
rious states  they  had  captured  at  the  last  election. 
There  were  a  dozen  of  these  states,  but  the  Grangers 
who  had  been  elected  were  not  permitted  to  take  office. 
The  incumbents  refused  to  get  out.  It  was  very  sim- 
ple. They  merely  charged  illegality  in  the  elections 
and  wrapped  up  the  whole  situation  in  the  interminable 


THE  END  241 

red  tape  of  the  law.  The  Grangers  were  powerless. 
The  courts  were  the  last  recourse,  and  the  courts  were 
in  the  hands  of  their  enemies. 

This  was  the  moment  of  danger^  If  the  cheated 
Grangers  became  violent,  all  was  lost.  How  we 
socialists  worked  to  hold  them  back  !  There  were  days 
and  nights  when  Ernest  never  closed  his  eyes  in  sleep. 
The  big  leaders  of  the  Grangers  saw  the  peril  and  were 
with  us  to  a  man.  But  it  was  all  of  no  avail.  The 
Oligarchy  wanted  violence,  and  it  set  its  agents- 
provocateurs  to  work.  Without  discussion,  it  was  the 
agents-provocateurs  who  caused  the  Peasant  Revolt. 

In  a  dozen  states  the  revolt  flared  up.  The  ex- 
propriated farmers  took  forcible  possession  of  the 
state  governments.  Of  course  this  was  unconstitu- 
tional, and  of  course  the  United  States  put  its  soldiers 
into  the  field.  Everywhere  the  agents-provocateurs 
urged  the  people  on.  These  emissaries  of  the  Iron 
Heel  disguised  themselves  as  artisans,  farmers,  and 
farm  laborers.  In  Sacramento,  the  capital  of  Cali- 
fornia, the  Grangers  had  succeeded  in  maintaining 
order.  Thousands  of  secret  agents  were  rushed  to  the 
devoted  city.  In  mobs  composed  wholly  of  themselves, 
they  fired  and  looted  buildings  and  factories.  They 
worked  the  people  up  until  they  joined  them  in  the 
pillage.  Liquor  in  large  quantities  was  distributed 
among  the  slum  classes  further  to  inflame  their  minds. 
And  then,  when  all  was  ready,   appeared  upon  the 


242  THE  IRON  HEEL 

scene  the  soldiers  of  the  United  States,  who  were,  in 
reality,  the  soldiers  of  the  Iron  Heel.  Eleven  thousand 
men,  women,  and  children  were  shot  down  on  the  streets 
of  Sacramento  or  murdered  in  their  houses.  The 
national  government  took  possession  of  the  state  gov- 
ernment, and  all  was  over  for  California. 

And  as  with  California,  so  elsewhere.  Every  Granger 
state  was  ravaged  with  violence  and  washed  in  blood. 
First,  disorder  was  precipitated  by  the  secret  agents 
and  the  Black  Hundreds,  then  the  troops  were  called 
out.  Rioting  and  mob-rule  reigned  throughout  the 
rural  districts.  Day  and  night  the  smoke  of  burning 
farms,  warehouses,  villages,  and  cities  filled  the  sky. 
Dynamite  appeared.  Railroad  bridges  and  tunnels 
were  blown  up  and  trains  were  wrecked.  The  poor 
farmers  were  shot  and  hanged  in  great  numbers. 
Reprisals  were  bitter,  and  many  plutocrats  and  army 
officers  were  murdered.  Blood  and  vengeance  were 
in  men's  hearts.  The  regular  troops  fought  the  farm- 
ers as  savagely  as  had  they  been  Indians.  And  the 
regular  troops  had  cause.  Twenty-eight  hundred  of 
them  had  been  annihilated  in  a  tremendous  series  of 
dynamite  explosions  in  Oregon,  and  in  a  similar  man- 
ner, a  number  of  train  loads,  at  different  times  and 
places,  had  been  destroyed.  So  it  was  that  the  regular 
troops  fought  for  their  lives  as  well  as  did  the  farmers. 

As  for  the  militia,  the  militia  law  of  1903  was  put 
into  effect,  and  the  workers  of  one  state  were  com- 


THE  END  243 

pelled,  under  pain  of  death,  to  shoot  down  their 
comrade-workers  in  other  states.  Of  course,  the 
militia  law  did  not  work  smoothly  at  first.  Many 
militia  officers  were  murdered,  and  many  militiamen 
were  executed  by  drumhead  court  martial.  Ernest's 
prophecy  was  strikingly  fulfilled  in  the  cases  of  Mr. 
Kowalt  and  Mr.  Asmunsen.  Both  were  eligible  for 
the  militia,  and  both  were  drafted  to  serve  in  the 
punitive  expedition  that  was  despatched  from  Cali- 
fornia against  the  farmers  of  Missouri.  Mr.  Kowalt 
and  Mr.  Asmunsen  refused  to  serve.  They  were  given 
short  shrift.  Drumhead  court  martial  was  their  por- 
tion, and  military  execution  their  end.  They  were 
shot  with  their  backs  to  the  firing  squad. 

Many  young  men  fled  into  the  mountains  to  escape 
serving  in  the  militia.  There  they  became  outlaws, 
and  it  was  not  until  more  peaceful  times  that  they 
received  their  punishment.  It  was  drastic.  The  gov- 
ernment issued  a  proclamation  for  all  law-abiding 
citizens  to  come  in  from  the  mountains  for  a  period 
of  three  months.  When  the  proclaimed  date  arrived, 
half  a  million  soldiers  were  sent  into  the  mountainous 
districts  everywhere.  There  was  no  investigation,  no 
trial.  Wherever  a  man  was  encountered,  he  was  shot 
down  on  the  spot.  The  troops  operated  on  the  basis 
that  no  man  not  an  outlaw  remained  in  the  mountains. 
Some  bands,  in  strong  positions,  fought  gallantly,  but 
in  the  end  every  deserter  from  the  militia  met  death. 


244  THE  IRON  HEEL 

A  more  immediate  lesson,  however,  was  impressed 
on  the  minds  of  the  people  by  the  punishment  meted 
•out  to  the  Kansas  militia.  The  great  Kansas  Mutiny 
•occurred  at  the  very  beginning  of  military  operations 
against  the  Grangers.  Six  thousand  of  the  militia 
"mutinied.  They  had  been  for  several  weeks  very  tur- 
bulent and  sullen,  and  for  that  reason  had  been  kept 
In  camp.  Their  open  mutiny,  however,  was  without 
doubt  precipitated  by  the  agents-provocateurs. 

On  the  night  of  the  22d  of  April  they  arose 
and  murdered  their  officers,  only  a  small  remnant  of 
the  latter  escaping.  This  was  beyond  the  scheme  of 
the  Iron  Heel,  for  the  agents-provocateurs  had  done 
their  work  too  well.  But  everything  was  grist  to  the 
Iron  Heel.  It  had  prepared  for  the  outbreak,  and  the 
killing  of  so  many  officers  gave  it  justification  for  what 
followed.  As  by  magic,  forty  thousand  soldiers  of  the 
regular  army  surrounded  the  malcontents.  It  was 
a  trap.  The  wretched  militiamen  found  that  their 
machine-guns  had  been  tampered  with,  and  that  the 
cartridges  from  the  captured  magazines  did  not  fit 
their  rifles.  They  hoisted  the  white  flag  of  surrender, 
but  it  was  ignored.  There  were  no  survivors.  The 
entire  six  thousand  were  annihilated.  Common  shell 
and  shrapnel  were  thrown  in  upon  them  from  a  dis- 
tance, and,  when,  in  their  desperation,  they  charged 
the  encircling  lines,  they  were  mowed  down  by  the 
.machine-guns.     I  talked  with  an  eye-witness,  and  he 


THE  END  245 

said  that  the  nearest  any  militiaman  approached  the 
machine-guns  was  a  hundred  and  fifty  yards.  The 
earth  was  carpeted  with  the  slain,  and  a  final  charge  of 
cavalry,  with  trampling  of  horses'  hoofs,  revolvers,  and 
sabres,  crushed  the  wounded  into  the  ground. 

Simultaneously  with  the  destruction  of  the  Gran 
came  the  revolt  of  the  coal  miners.  It  was  the  expir- 
ing effort  of  organized  labor.  Three-quarters  of  a 
million  of  miners  went  out  on  strike.  But  they  were 
too  widely  scattered  over  the  country  to  advantage 
from  their  own  strength.  They  were  segregated  in 
their  own  districts  and  beaten  into  submission.  This 
was  the  first  great  slave-drive.  Pocock  1  won  his  spurs 
as  a  slave-driver  and  earned  the  undying  hatred  of  the 
proletariat.  Countless  attempts  were  made  upon  his 
life,  but  he  seemed  to  bear  a  charmed  existence.  It 
was  he  who  was  responsible  for  the  introduction  of  the 
Russian  passport  system  among  the  miners,  and  the 

1  Albert  Pocock,  another  of  the  notorious  strike-breakers  of  earlier 
years,  who,  to  the  day  of  his  death,  successfully  held  all  the  coal- 
miners  of  the  country  to  their  task.  He  was  succeeded  by  his  son, 
Lewis  Pocock,  and  for  five  generations  this  remarkable  line  of  slave- 
drivers  handled  the  coal  mines.  The  elder  Pocock,  known  as  Pocock 
I.,  has  been  described  as  follows:  "A  long,  lean  head,  semicircled  by  a 
fringe  of  brown  and  gray  hair,  with  big  cheek-bones  and  a  heavy  chin, 
...  a  pale  face,  lustreless  gray  eyes,  a  metallic  voice,  and  a  languid 
manner."  He  was  born  of  humble  parents,  and  began  his  career  as  a 
bartender.  He  next  became  a  private  detective  for  a  street  railway 
corporation,  and  by  successive  steps  developed  into  a  professional 
strike-breaker.  Pocock  V.,  the  last  of  the  line,  was  blown  up  in  a  pump- 
house  by  a  bomb  during  a  petty  revolt  of  the  miners  in  the  Indian 
Territory.     This  occurred  in  2073  a.d. 


246  THE  IRON  HEEL 

denial  of  their  right  of  removal  from  one  part  of  the 
country  to  another. 

In  the  meantime,  the  socialists  held  firm.  While 
the  Grangers  expired  in  flame  and  blood,  and  organized 
labor  was  disrupted,  the  socialists  held  their  peace 
and  perfected  their  secret  organization.  In  vain  the 
Grangers  pleaded  with  us.  We  rightly  contended  that 
any  revolt  on  our  part  was  virtually  suicide  for  the 
whole  Revolution.  The  Iron  Heel,  at  first  dubious 
about  dealing  with  the  entire  proletariat  at  one  time, 
had  found  the  work  easier  than  it  had  expected,  and 
would  have  asked  nothing  better  than  an  uprising  on 
our  part.  But  we  avoided  the  issue,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  agents-provocateurs  swarmed  in  our  midst. 
In  those  early  days,  the  agents  of  the  Iron  Heel  were 
clumsy  in  their  methods.  They  had  much  to  learn 
and  in  the  meantime  our  Fighting  Groups  weeded  them 
out.  It  was  bitter,  bloody  work,  but  we  were  fighting 
for  life  and  for  the  Revolution,  and  we  had  to  fight 
the  enemy  with  its  own  weapons.  Yet  we  were  fair. 
No  agent  of  the  Iron  Heel  was  executed  without  a 
trial.  We  may  have  made  mistakes,  but  if  so,  very 
rarely.  The  bravest,  and  the  most  combative  and 
self-sacrificing  of  our  comrades  went  into  the  Fighting 
Groups.  Once,  after  ten  years  had  passed,  Ernest 
made  a  calculation  from  figures  furnished  by  the  chiefs 
of  the  Fighting  Groups,  and  his  conclusion  was  that 
the  average  life  of  a  man  or  woman  after  becoming  a 


THE  END  247 

member  was  five  years.  The  comrades  of  the  Fight- 
ing Groups  were  heroes  all,  and  the  peculiar  thing 
about  it  was  that  they  were  opposed  to  the  taking  of 
life.  They  violated  their  own  natures,  yet  they  loved 
liberty  and  knew  of  no  sacrifice  too  great  to  make  for 
the  Cause.1 

The  task  we  set  ourselves  was  threefold.  First, 
the  weeding  out  from  our  circles  of  the  secret  agents 

1  These  Fighting  groups  were  modelled  somewhat  after  the  Fighting 
Organization  of  the  Russian  Revolution,  and,  despite  the  unceasing 
efforts  of  the  Iron  Heel,  these  groups  persisted  throughout  the  three 
centuries  of  its  existence.  Composed  of  men  and  women  actuated  by 
lofty  purpose  and  unafraid  to  die,  the  Fighting  Groups  exercised  tre- 
mendous influence  and  tempered  the  savage  brutality  of  the  rulers. 
Not  alone  was  their  work  confined  to  unseen  warfare  with  the  secret 
agents  of  the  Oligarchy.  The  oligarchs  themselves  were  compelled 
to  listen  to  the  decrees  of  the  Groups,  and  often,  when  they  disobeyed, 
were  punished  by  death  —  and  likewise  with  the  subordinates  of  the 
oligarchs,  with  the  officers  of  the  army  and  the  leaders  of  the  labor 
castes. 

Stern  justice  was  meted  out  by  these  organized  avengers,  but 
most  remarkable  was  their  passionless  and  judicial  procedure.  There 
were  no  snap  judgments.  When  a  man  was  captured  he  was  given 
fair  trial  and  opportunity  for  defence.  Of  necessity,  many  men  were 
tried  and  condemned  by  proxy,  as  in  the  case  of  General  Lampton. 
This  occurred  in  2138  a.d.  Possibly  the  most  bloodthirsty  and  ma- 
lignant of  all  the  mercenaries  that  ever  served  the  Iron  Heel,  he  was 
informed  by  the  Fighting  Groups  that  they  had  tried  him,  found  him 
guilty,  and  condemned  him  to  death  —  and  this,  after  three  warnings 
for  him  to  cease  from  his  ferocious  treatment  of  the  proletariat.  After 
his  condemnation  he  surrounded  himself  with  a  myriad  protective 
devices.  Years  passed,  and  in  vain  the  Fighting  Groups  strove  to 
execute  their  decree.  Comrade  after  comrade,  men  and  women, 
failed  in  their  attempts,  and  were  cruelly  executed  by  the  Oligarchy. 
It  was  the  case  of  General  Lampton  that  revived  crucifixion  as  a  legal 
method  of  execution.  But  in  the  end  the  condemned  man  found  his 
executioner  in  the  form  of  a  slender  girl  of  seventeen,  Madeline  Pro- 


248  THE  IRON  HEEL 

of  the  Oligarchy.  Second,  the  organizing  of  the 
Fighting  Groups,  and,  outside  of  them,  of  the  general 
secret  organization  of  the  Revolution.  And  third,  the 
introduction  of  our  own  secret  agents  into  every  branch 
of  the  Oligarchy  —  into  the  labor  castes  and  especially 
among  the  telegraphers  and  secretaries  and  clerks,  into 
the  army,  the  agents-provocateurs,  and  the  slave- 
drivers.  It  was  slow  work,  and  perilous,  and  often 
were  our  efforts  rewarded  with  costly  failures. 

The  Iron  Heel  had  triumphed  in  open  warfare,  but 
we  held  our  own  in  the  new  warfare,  strange  and  awful 
and  subterranean,  that  we  instituted.  All  was  unseen, 
much  was  unguessed  ;  the  blind  fought  the  blind ;  and 
yet  through  it  all  was  order,  purpose,  control.  We 
permeated  the  entire  organization  of  the  Iron  Heel 
with  our  agents,  while  our  own  organization  was  per- 

vence,  who,  to  accomplish  her  purpose,  served  two  years  in  his  palace 
as  a  seamstress  to  the  household.  She  died  in  solitary  confinement 
after  horrible  and  prolonged  torture ;  but  to-day  she  stands  in  imperish- 
able bronze  in  the  Pantheon  of  Brotherhood  in  the  wonder  city  of  Series. 
We,  who  by  personal  experience  know  nothing  of  bloodshed,  must 
not  judge  harshly  the  heroes  of  the  Fighting  Groups.  They  gave  up 
their  lives  for  humanity,  no  sacrifice  was  too  great  for  them  to  accom- 
plish, while  inexorable  necessity  compelled  them  to  bloody  expression 
in  an  age  of  blood.  The  Fighting  Groups  constituted  the  one  thorn 
in  the  side  of  the  Iron  Heel  that  the  Iron  Heel  could  never  remove. 
Everhard  was  the  father  of  this  curious  army,  and  its  accomplishments 
and  successful  persistence  for  three  hundred  years  bear  witness  to  the 
wisdom  with  which  he  organized  and  the  solid  foundation  he  laid  foif 
the  succeeding  generations  to  build  upon.  In  some  respects,  despite 
his  great  economic  and  sociological  contributions,  and  his  work  as  a 
general  leader  in  the  Revolution,  his  organization  of  the  Fighting 
Groups  must  be  regarded  as  his  greatest  achievement. 


THE  END  249 

meated  with  the  agents  of  the  Iron  Heel.  It  was  war- 
fare dark  and  devious,  replete  with  intrigue  and  con- 
spiracy, plot  and  counterplot.  And  behind  all,  ever 
menacing,  was  death,  violent  and  terrible.  Men  and 
women  disappeared,  our  nearest  and  dearest  comrades. 
We  saw  them  to-day.  To-morrow  they  were  gone ; 
we  never  saw  them  again,  and  we  knew  that  they  had 
died. 

There  was  no  trust,  no  confidence  anywhere.  The 
man  who  plotted  beside  us,  for  all  we  knew,  might  be 
an  agent  of  the  Iron  Heel.  We  mined  the  organization 
of  the  Iron  Heel  with  our  secret  agents,  and  the  Iron 
Heel  countermined  with  its  secret  agents  inside  its 
own  organization.  And  it  was  the  same  with  our 
organization.  And  despite  the  absence  of  confidence 
and  trust  we  were  compelled  to  base  our  every  effort 
on  confidence  and  trust.  Often  were  we  betrayed. 
Men  were  weak.  The  Iron  Heel  could  offer  money, 
leisure,  the  joys  and  pleasures  that  waited  in  the  repose 
of  the  wonder  cities.  We  could  offer  nothing  but  the 
satisfaction  of  being  faithful  to  a  noble  ideal.  As  for 
the  rest,  the  wages  of  those  who  were  loyal  were 
unceasing  peril,  torture,  and  death. 

Men  were  weak,  I  say,  and  because  of  their  weakness 
we  were  compelled  to  make  the  only  other  reward  that 
was  within  our  power.  It  was  the  reward  of  death. 
Out  of  necessity  we  had  to  punish  our  traitors.  For 
every  man  who  betrayed  us,  from  one  to  a  dozen  faith- 


250  THE  IRON  HEEL 

ful  avengers  were  loosed  upon  his  heels.  We  might 
fail  to  carry  out  our  decrees  against  our  enemies,  such 
as  the  Pococks,  for  instance ;  but  the  one  thing  we 
could  not  afford  to  fail  in  was  the  punishment  of  our 
own  traitors.  Comrades  turned  traitor  by  permission, 
in  order  to  win  to  the  wonder  cities  and  there  execute 
our  sentences  on  the  real  traitors.  In  fact,  so  terrible 
did  we  make  ourselves,  that  it  became  a  greater  peril 
to  betray  us  than  to  remain  loyal  to  us. 

The  Revolution  took  on  largely  the  character  of 
religion.  We  worshipped  at  the  shrine  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, which  was  the  shrine  of  liberty.  It  was  the  divine 
flashing  through  us.  Men  and  women  devoted  their 
lives  to  the  Cause,  and  new-born  babes  were  sealed  to 
it  as  of  old  they  had  been  sealed  to  the  service  of  God. 
We  were  lovers  of  Humanity. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE    SCARLET   LIVERY 

With  the  destruction  of  the  Granger  states,  the 
Grangers  in  Congress  disappeared.  They  were  being 
tried  for  high  treason,  and  their  places  were  taken  by 
the  creatures  of  the  Iron  Heel.  The  socialists  were  in 
a  pitiful  minorit}^  and  they  knew  that  their  end  was 
near.  Congress  and  the  Senate  were  empty  pretences, 
farces.  Public  questions  were  gravely  debated  and 
passed  upon  according  to  the  old  forms,  while  in  reality 
all  that  was  done  was  to  give  the  stamp  of  constitutional 
procedure  to  the  mandates  of  the  Oligarchy. 

Ernest  was  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  when  the  end 
came.  It  was  in  the  debate  on  the  bill  to  assist  the 
unemployed.  The  hard  times  of  the  preceding  year 
had  thrust  great  masses  of  the  proletariat  beneath  the 
starvation  line,  and  the  continued  and  wide-reaching 
disorder  had  but  sunk  them  deeper.  Millions  of  people 
were  starving,  while  the  oligarchs  and.  their  supporters 
were    surfeiting    on    the   surplus.1     We    called    these 

1  The  same  conditions  obtained  in  the  nineteenth  century  a.d., 
under  British  rule  in  India.  The  natives  died  of  starvation  by  the 
million,  while  their  rulers  robbed  them  of  the  fruits  of  their  toil  and 
expended  it  on  magnificent  pageants  and  mumbo- jumbo  fooleries. 
Perforce,  in  this  enlightened  age,  we  have  much.to  blush  for  in  the  acts 

251 


252  THE  IRON  HEEL 

wretched  people  the  people  of  the  abyss,1  and  it  was 
to  alleviate  their  awful  suffering  that  the  socialists 
had  introduced  the  unemployed  bill.  But  this  was 
not  to  the  fancy  of  the  Iron  Heel.  In  its  own  way  it 
was  preparing  to  set  these  millions  to  work,  but  the 
way  was  not  our  way,  wherefore  it  had  issued  its 
orders  that  our  bill  should  be  voted  down.  Ernest  and 
his  fellows  knew  that  their  effort  was  futile,  but  they 
were  tired  of  the  suspense.  They  wanted  something 
to  happen.  They  were  accomplishing  nothing,  and 
the  best  they  hoped  for  was  the  putting  of  an  end  to 
the  legislative  farce  in  which  they  were  unwilling  play- 
ers. They  knew  not  what  end  would  come,  but  they 
never  anticipated  a  more  disastrous  end  than  the  one 
that  did  come. 

I  sat  in  the  gallery  that  day.  We  all  knew  that  some- 
thing terrible  was  imminent.  It  was  in  the  air,  and 
its  presence  was  made  visible  by  the  armed  soldiers 

of  our  ancestors.  Our  only  consolation  is  philosophic.  We  must  ac- 
cept the  capitalistic  stage  in  social  evolution  as  about  on  a  par  with 
the  earlier  monkey  stage.  The  human  had  to  pass  through  those 
stages  in  its  rise  from  the  mire  and  slime  of  low  organic  life.  It  was 
inevitable  that  much  of  the  mire  and  slime  should  cling  and  be  not 
easily  shaken  off. 

1  The  people  of  the  abyss —  this  phrase  was  struck  out  by  the  genius 
of  H.  G.  Wells  in  the  late  nineteenth  century  a.d.  Wells  was  a 
sociological  seer,  sane  and  normal  as  well  as  warm  human.  Many 
fragments  of  his  work  have  come  down  to  us,  while  two  of  his  greatest 
achievements,  "Anticipations"  and  "Mankind  in  the  Making," 
have  come  down  intact.  Before  the  oligarchs,  and  before  Everhard, 
Wells  speculated  upon  the  building  of  the  wonder  cities,  though  in 
his  writings  they  are  referred  to  as  "  pleasure  cities." 


THE  SCARLET  LIVERY  253 

drawn  up  in  lines  in  the  corridors,  and  by  the  officers 
grouped  in  the  entrances  to  the  House  itself.  The 
Oligarchy  was  about  to  strike.  Ernest  was  speaking. 
He  was  describing  the  sufferings  of  the  unemployed,  as 
if  with  the  wild  idea  of  in  some  way  touching  their 
hearts  and  consciences;  but  the  Republican  and 
Democratic  members  sneered  and  jeered  at  him,  and 
there  was  uproar  and  confusion.  Ernest  abruptly 
changed  front. 

"I  know  nothing  that  I  may  say  can  influence  you," 
he  said.  "You  have  no  souls  to  be  influenced.  You 
are  spineless,  flaccid  things.  You  pompously  call 
yourselves  Republicans  and  Democrats.  There  is  no 
Republican  Party.  There  is  no  Democratic  Party. 
There  are  no  Republicans  nor  Democrats  in  this  House. 
You  are  lick-spittlers  and  panderers,  the  creatures  of 
the  Plutocracy.  You  talk  verbosely  in  antiquated 
terminology  of  your  love  of  liberty,  and  all  the  while 
you  wear  the  scarlet  livery  of  the  Iron  Heel." 

Here  the  shouting  and  the  cries  of  "Order!  order!" 
drowned  his  voice,  and  he  stood  disdainfully  till  the 
din  had  somewhat  subsided.  He  waved  his  hand  to 
include  all  of  them,  turned  to  his  own  comrades,  and 
said: 

"Listen  to  the  bellowing  of  the  well-fed  beasts." 
Pandemonium  broke  out  again.     The  Speaker  rapped 
for  order  and  glanced  expectantly  at  the  officers  in  the 
doorways.     There  were   cries  of  "Sedition!"    and  a 


254  THE  IRON  HEEL 

great,    rotund    New    York    member    began    shouting 
"Anarchist!"  at  Ernest.     And  Ernest  was  not  pleasant 
to  look  at.     Every  fighting  fibre  of  him  was  quivering,  / 
and  his  face  was  the  face  of  a  fighting  animal,  withal 
he  was  cool  and  collected. 

" Remember,"  he  said,  in  a  voice  that  made  itself 
heard  above  the  din,  "that  as  you  show  mercy  now  to 
the  proletariat,  some  day  will  that  same  proletariat 
show  mercy  to  you." 

The  cries  of  "Sedition!"  and  "Anarchist!"  re- 
doubled. 

"I  know  that  you  will  not  vote  for  this  bill,"  Ernest 
went  on.  "You  have  received  the  command  from 
your  masters  to  vote  against  it.  And  yet  }rou  call  me 
anarchist.  You,  who  have  destroyed  the  government 
of  the  people,  and  who  shamelessly  flaunt  your  scarlet 
shame  in  public  places,  call  me  anarchist.  I  do  not 
believe  in  hell-fire  and  brimstone  ;  but  in  moments  like 
this  I  regret  my  unbelief.  Nay,  in  moments  like  this 
I  almost  do  believe.  Surely  there  must  be  a  hell,  for 
in  no  less  place  could  it  be  possible  for  you  to  receive 
punishment  adequate  to  your  crimes.  So  long  as  you 
exist,  there  is  a  vital  need  for  hell-fire  in  the  Cosmos." 

There  was  movement  in  the  doorways.  Ernest,  the 
Speaker,  all  the  members  turned  to  see. 

"Why  do  you  not  call  your  soldiers  in,  Mr.  Speaker, 
and  bid  them  do  their  work?"  Ernest  demanded* 
"They  should  carry  out  your  plan  with  expedition." 


THE  SCARLET  LIVERY  255 

"There  are  other  plans  afoot,"  was  the  retort. 
"That  is  why  the  soldiers  are  present." 

"Our  plans,  I  suppose,"  Ernest  sneered.  " Assassi- 
nation or  something  kindred." 

But  at  the  word  "assassination  "  the  uproar  broke 
out  again.  Ernest  could  not  make  himself  heard,  but 
he  remained  on  his  feet  waiting  for  a  lull.  And  then  it 
happened.  From  my  place  in  the  gallery  I  saw  nothing 
except  the  flash  of  the  explosion.  The  roar  of  it  filled 
my  ears  and  I  saw  Ernest  reeling  and  falling  in  a  swirl 
of  smoke,  and  the  soldiers  rushing  up  all  the  aisles. 
His  comrades  were  on  their  feet,  wild  with  anger, 
capable  of  any  violence.  But  Ernest  steadied  him- 
self for  a  moment,  and  waved  his  arms  for  silence. 

"It  is  a  plot !"  his  voice  rang  out  in  warning  to  his 
comrades.     "Do  nothing,  or  you  will  be  destroyed." 

Then  he  slowly  sank  down,  and  the  soldiers  reached 
him.  The  next  moment  soldiers  were  clearing  the 
galleries  and  I  saw  no  more. 

Though  he  was  my  husband,  I  was  not  permitted 
to  get  to  him.  When  I  announced  who  I  was,  I  was 
promptly  placed  under  arrest.  And  at  the  same  time 
were  arrested  all  socialist  Congressmen  in  Washington, 
including  the  unfortunate  Simpson,  who  lay  ill  with 
typhoid  fever  in  his  hotel. 

The  trial  was  prompt  and  brief.  The  men  were 
foredoomed.  The  wonder  was  that  Ernest  was  not 
executed.     This  was   a  blunder  on  the  part  of  the 


256  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Oligarchy,  and  a  costly  one.  But  the  Oligarchy  was 
too  confident  in  those  days.  It  was  drunk  with  suc- 
cess, and  little  did  it  dream  that  that  small  handful 
of  heroes  had  within  them  the  power  to  rock  it  to  its 
foundations.  To-morrow,  when  the  Great  Revolt 
breaks  out  and  all  the  world  resounds  with  the  tramp, 
tramp  of  the  millions,  the  Oligarchy  will  realize,  and 
too  late,  how  mightily  that  band  of  heroes  has  grown.1 
As  a  revolutionist  myself,  as  one  on  the  inside  who 
knew  the  hopes  and  fears  and  secret  plans  of  the  revo- 
lutionists, I  am  fitted  to  answer,  as  very  few  are,  the 
charge  that  the}''  were  guilty  of  exploding  the  bomb 
in  Congress.  And  I  can  say  flatly,  without  qualifica- 
tion or  doubt  of  any  sort,  that  the  socialists,  in  Congress 

1  Avis  Everhard  took  for  granted  that  her  narrative  would  be  read 
in  her  own  day,  and  so  omits  to  mention  the  outcome  of  the  trial  for 
high  treason.  Many  other  similar  disconcerting  omissions  will  be 
noticed  in  the  Manuscript.  Fifty-two  socialist  Congressmen  were 
tried,  and  all  were  found  guilty.  Strange  to  relate,  not  one  received 
the  death  sentence.  Everhard  and  eleven  others,  among  whom  were 
Theodore  Donnelson  and  Matthew  Kent,  received  life  imprisonment. 
The  remaining  forty  received  sentences  varying  from  thirty  to  forty- 
five  years;  while  Arthur  Simpson,  referred  to  in  the  Manuscript  as 
being  ill  of  typhoid  fever  at  the  time  of  the  explosion,  received  only 
fifteen  years.  It  is  the  tradition  that  he  died  of  starvation  in  solitary 
confinement,  and  this  harsh  treatment  is  explained  as  having  been 
caused  by  his  uncompromising  stubbornness  and  his  fiery  and  tactless 
hatred  for  all  men  that  served  the  despotism.  He  died  in  Cabanas 
in  Cuba,  where  three  of  his  comrades  were  also  confined.  The  fifty- 
two  socialist  Congressmen  were  confined  in  military  fortresses  scattered 
all  over  the  United  States.  Thus,  Du  Bois  and  Woods  were  held  in 
Porto  Rico,  while  Everhard  and  Merryweather  were  placed  in  Alca- 
traz,  an  island  in  San  Francisco  Bay  that  had  already  seen  long  service 
as  a  military  prison. 


THE  SCARLET  LIVERY  257 

and  out,  had  no  hand  in  the  affair.  Who  threw  the 
bomb  we  do  not  know,  but  the  one  thing  we  are  abso- 
lutely sure  of  is  that  we  did  not  throw  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  evidence  to  show  that  the 
Iron  Heel  was  responsible  for  the  act.  Of  course,  we 
cannot  prove  this.  Our  conclusion  is  merely  presump- 
tive. But  here  are  such  facts  as  we  do  know.  It  had 
been  reported  to  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  by  secret- 
service  agents  of  the  government,  that  the  socialist 
Congressmen  were  about  to  resort  to  terroristic  tactics, 
and  that  they  had  decided  upon  the  day  when  their 
tactics  would  go  into  effect.  This  day  was  the  very 
day  of  the  explosion.  Wherefore  the  Capitol  had  been 
packed  with  troops  in  anticipation.  Since  we  knew 
nothing  about  the  bomb,  and  since  a  bomb  actually 
was  exploded,  and  since  the  authorities  had  prepared 
in  advance  for  the  explosion,  it  is  only  fair  to  conclude 
that  the  Iron  Heel  did  know.  Furthermore,  we  charge 
that  the  Iron  Heel  was  guilty  of  the  outrage,  and  that 
the  Iron  Heel  planned  and  perpetrated  the  outrage  for 
the  purpose  of  foisting  the  guilt  on  our  shoulders  and 
so  bringing  about  our  destruction. 

From  the  Speaker  the  warning  leaked  out  to  all  the 
creatures  in  the  House  that  wore  the  scarlet  livery. 
They  knew,  while  Ernest  was  speaking,  that  some  vio- 
lent act  was  to  be  committed.  And  to  do  them  justice, 
they  honestly  believed  that  the  act  was  to  be  com- 
mitted by  the  socialists.     At  the  trial,  and  still  with 


258  THE  IRON  HEEL 

honest  belief,  several  testified  to  having  seen  Ernest 
prepare  to  throw  the  bomb,  and  that  it  exploded  pre- 
maturely. Of  course  they  saw  nothing  of  the  sort. 
In  the  fevered  imagination  of  fear  they  thought  they 
saw,  that  was  all. 

As  Ernest  said  at  the  trial :  "Does  it  stand  to  reason, 
if  I  were  going  to  throw  a  bomb,  that  I  should  elect  to 
throw  a  feeble  little  squib  like  the  one  that  was  thrown  ? 
There  wasn't  enough  powder  in  it.  It  made  a  lot  of 
smoke,  but  hurt  no  one  except  me.  It  exploded  right 
•  at  my  feet,  and  yet  it  did  not  kill  me.  Believe  me, 
when  I  get  to  throwing  bombs,  I'll  do  damage.  There'll 
be  more  than  smoke  in  my  petards." 

In  return  it  was  argued  by  the  prosecution  that  the 
weakness  of  the  bomb  was  a  blunder  on  the  part  of  the 
socialists,  just  as  its  premature  explosion,  caused  by 
Ernest's  losing  his  nerve  and  dropping  it,  was  a  blunder. 
And  to  clinch,  the  argument,  there  were  the  several  Con- 
gressmen who  testified  to  having  seen  Ernest  fumble 
and  drop  the  bomb. 

As  for  ourselves,  not  one  of  us  knew  how  the  bomb 
was  thrown.  Ernest  told  me  that  the  fraction  of  an 
instant  before  it  exploded  he  both  heard  and  saw  it 
strike  at  his  feet.  He  testified  to  this  at  the  trial,  but 
no  one  believed  him.  Besides,  the  whole  thing,  in 
popular  slang,  was  "  cooked  up."  The  Iron  Heel  had 
made  up  its  mind  to  destroy  us,  and  there  was  no  with- 
standing it. 


THE  SCARLET  LIVERY  259 

There  is  a  saying  that  truth  will  out.  I  have  come  to 
doubt  that  saying.  Nineteen  years  have  elapsed,  and 
despite  our  untiring  efforts,  we  have  failed  to  find  the 
man  who  really  did  throw  the  bomb.  Undoubtedly 
he  was  some  emissary  of  the  Iron  Heel,  but  he  has 
escaped  detection.  We  have  never  got  the  slightest 
clew  to  his  identity.  And  now,  at  this  late  date,  nothing 
remains  but  for  the  affair  to  take  its  place  among  the 
mysteries  of  history.1 

1  Avis  Everhard  would  have  had  to  live  for  many  generations  ere 
she  could  have  seen  the  clearing  up  of  this  particular  mystery.  A 
little  less  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  a  little  more  than  six  hundred 
years  after  her  death,  the  confession  of  Pervaise  was  discovered  in  the 
secret  archives  of  the  Vatican.  It  is  perhaps  well  to  tell  a  little  some- 
thing about  this  obscure  document,  which,  in  the  main,  is  of  interest 
to  the  historian  only. 

Pervaise  was  an  American,  of  French  descent,  who,  in  1913  a.d., 
was  lying  in  the  Tombs  Prison,  New  York  City,  awaiting  trial  for 
murder.  From  his  confession  we  learn  that  he  was  not  a  criminal. 
He  was  warm-blooded,  passionate,  emotional.  In  an  insane  fit  of 
jealousy  he  killed  his  wife —  a  very  common  act  in  those  times.  Per- 
vaise was  mastered  by  the  fear  of  death,  all  of  which  is  recounted  at 
length  in  his  confession.  To  escape  death  he  would  have  done  any- 
thing, and  the  police  agents  prepared  him  by  assuring  him  that  he 
could  not  possibly  escape  conviction  of  murder  in  the  first  degree 
when  his  trial  came  off.  In  those  days,  murder  in  the  first  degree  was 
a  capital  offence.  The  guilty  man  or  woman  was  placed  in  a  specially 
constructed  death-chair,  and,  under  the  supervision  of  competent  phy- 
sicians, was  destroyed  by  a  current  of  electricity.  This  was  called 
electrocution,  and  it  was  very  popular  during  that  period.  Anaesthe- 
sia, as  a  mode  of  compulsory  death,  was  not  introduced  until  later. 

This  man,  good  at  heart  but  with  a  ferocious  animalism  close  at  the 
surface  of  his  being,  lying  in  jail  and  expectant  of  nothing  less  than 
death,  was  prevailed  upon  by  the  agents  of  the  Iron  Heel  to  throw  the 
bomb  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  In  his  confession  he  states 
explicitly  that  he  was  informed  that  the  bomb  was  to  be  a  feeble  thing 
and  that  no  fives  would  be  lost.     This  is  directly  in  line  with  the  fact 


260  THE  IRON  HEEL 

that  the  bomb  was  lightly  charged,  and  that  its  explosion  at  Ever- 
hard' s  feet  was  not  deadly. 

Pervaise  was  smuggled  into  one  of  the  galleries  ostensibly  closed 
for  repairs.  He  was  to  select  the  moment  for  the  throwing  of  the 
bomb,  and  he  naively  confesses  that  in  his  interest  in  Everhard'  s  tirade 
and  the  general  commotion  raised  thereby,  he  nearly  forgot  his  mis- 
sion. 

Not  only  was  he  released  from  prison  in  reward  for  his  deed,  but 
he  was  granted  an  income  for  life.  This  he  did  not  long  enjoy.  In 
1914  a.d.,  in  September,  he  was  striken  with  rheumatism  of  the  heart 
and  lived  for  three  days.  It  was  then  that  he  sent  for  the  Catholic 
priest,  Father  Peter  Durban,  and  to  him  made  confession.  So  im- 
portant did  it  seem  to  the  priest,  that  he  had  the  confession  taken  down 
in  writing  and  sworn  to.  What  happened  after  this  we  can  only  sur- 
mise. The  document  was  certainly  important  enough  to  find  its  way 
to  Rome.  Powerful  influences  must  have  been  brought  to  bear, 
hence  its  suppression.  For  centuries  no  hint  of  its  existence  reached 
the  world.  It  was  not  until  in  the  last  century  that  Lorbia,  the  bril- 
liant Italian  scholar,  stumbled  upon  it  quite  by  chance  during  his 
researches  in  the  Vatican. 

There  is  to-day  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  Iron  Heel  was  respon- 
sible for  the  bomb  that  exploded  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
1913  a.d.  Even  though  the  Pervaise  confession  had  never  come  to 
light,  no  reasonable  doubt  could  obtain;  for  the  act  in  question,  that 
sent  fifty-two  Congressmen  to  prison,  was  on  a  par  with  countless 
other  acts  committed  by  the  oligarchs,  and,  before  them,  by  the  cap- 
italists. 

There  is  the  classic  instance  of  the  ferocious  and  wanton  judicial 
murder  of  the  innocent  and  so-called  Haymarket  Anarchists  in  Chicago 
in  the  penultimate  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century  a.d.  In  a  cate- 
gory by  itself  is  the  deliberate  burning  and  destruction  of  capitalist 
property  by  the  capitalists  themselves  —  see  second  footnote  on  page 
172.  For  such  destruction  of  property  innocent  men  were  frequently 
punished —  "railroaded"  in  the  parlance  of  the  times. 

In  the  labor  troubles  of  the  first  decade  of  the  twentieth  century 
a.d.,  between  the  capitalists  and  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners, 
similar  but  more  bloody  tactics  were  employed.  The  railroad  station 
at  Independence  was  blown  up  by  the  agents  of  the  capitalists.  Thir- 
teen men  were  killed,  and  many  more  were  wounded.  And  then  the 
capitalists,  controlling  the  legislative  and  judicial  machinery  of  the 
state  of  Colorado,  charged  the  miners  with  the  crime  and  came  very 
near  to  convicting  them.     Romaines,  one  of  the  tools  in  this  affair, 


THE  SCARLET  LIVERY  261 

like  Pervaise,  was  lying  in  jail  in  another  state,  Kansas,  awaiting  trial, 
when  he  was  approached  by  the  agents  of  the  capitalists.  But,  unlike 
Pervaise,  the  confession  of  Romaines  was  made  public  in  his  own  time. 
Then,  during  this  same  period,  there  was  the  case  of  Moyer  and 
Haywood,  two  strong,  fearless  leaders  of  labor.  One  was  president 
and  the  other  was  secretary  of  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners.  The 
ex-governor  of  Idaho  had  been  mysteriously  murdered.  The  crime, 
at  the  time,  was  openly  charged  to  the  mine  owners  by  the  socialists 
and  miners.  Nevertheless,  in  violation  of  the  national  and  state  con- 
stitutions, and  by  means  of  conspiracy  on  the  parts  of  the  governors 
of  Idaho  and  Colorado,  Moyer  and  Haywood  were  kidnapped,  thrown 
into  jail,  and  charged  with  the  murder.  It  was  this  instance  that  pro- 
voked from  Eugene  V.  Debs,  national  leader  of  the  American  social- 
ists at  the  time,  the  following  words :  "  The  labor  leaders  that  cannot 
be  bribed  nor  bullied,  must  be  ambushed  and  murdered.  The  only  crime 
of  Moyer  and  Haywood  is  that  they  have  been  unswervingly  true  to  the 
working  class.  The  capitalists  have  stolen  our  country,  debauched  our 
politics,  defiled  our  judiciary,  and  ridden  over  us  rough-shod,  and  now 
they  propose  to  murder  those  who  will  not  abjectly  surrender  to  their 
brutal  dominion.  The  governors  of  Colorado  and  Idaho  are  but  execut- 
ing the  mandates  of  their  masters,  the  Plutocracy.  The  issue  is  the 
Workers  versus  the  Plutocracy.  If  they  strike  the  first  violent  blow, 
we  will  strike  the  last." 


CHAPTER  XVin 

IN  THE   SHADOW   OF  SONOMA 

Of  myself,  during  this  period,  there  is  not  much  to 
say.  For  six  months  I  was  kept  in  prison,  though 
charged  with  no  crime.  I  was  a  suspect  —  a  word  of 
fear  that  all  revolutionists  were  soon  to  come  to  know. 
But  our  own  nascent  secret  service  was  beginning  to 
work.  By  the  end  of  my  second  month  in  prison,  one 
of  the  jailers  made  himself  known  as  a  revolutionist 
in  touch  with  the  organization.  Several  weeks  later, 
Joseph  Parkhurst,  the  prison  doctor  who  had  just  been 
appointed,  proved  himself  to  be  a  member  of  one  of  the 
Fighting  Groups. 

Thus,  throughout  the  organization  of  the  Oligarchy, 
our  own  organization,  weblike  and  spidery,  was  in- 
sinuating itself.  And  so  I  was  kept  in  touch  with  all 
that  was  happening  in  the  world  without.  And  fur- 
thermore, every  xme  of  our  imprisoned  leaders  was  in 
contact  with  brave  comrades  who  masqueraded  in  the 
livery  of  the  Iron  Heel.  Though  Ernest  lay  in  prison 
three  thousand  miles  away,  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  I  was 
in  unbroken  communication  with  him,  and  our  letters 
passed  regularly  back  and  forth. 

262 


IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  SONOMA  263 

The  leaders,  in  prison  and  out,  were  able  to  discuss 
and  direct  the  campaign.  It  would  have  been  pos- 
sible, within  a  few  months,  to  have  effected  the  escape 
of  some  of  them;  but  since  imprisonment  proved  no 
bar  to  our  activities,  it  was  decided  to  avoid  anything 
premature.  Fifty-two  Congressmen  were  in  prison, 
and  fully  three  hundred  more  of  our  leaders.  It  was 
planned  that  they  should  be  delivered  simultaneously. 
If  part  of  them  escaped,  the  vigilance  of  the  oligarchs 
might  be  aroused  so  as  to  prevent  the  escape  of  the 
remainder.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  held  that  a 
simultaneous  jail-delivery  all  over  the  land  would  have 
immense  psychological  influence  on  the  proletariat. 
It  would  show^  our  strength  and  give  confidence. 

So  it  was  arranged,  when  I  was  released  at  the  end  of 
six  months,  that  I  was  to  disappear  and  prepare  a  secure 
hiding-place  for  Ernest.  To  disappear  was  in  itself  no 
easy  thing.  No  sooner  did  I  get  my  freedom  than  my 
footsteps  began  to  be  dogged  by  the  spies  of  the  Ircn 
Heel.  It  was  necessary  that  they  should  be  thrown 
off  the  track,  and  that  I  should  win  to  California.  It 
is  laughable,  the  way  this  was  accomplished. 

Already  the  passport  system,  modelled  on  the  Rus- 
sian, was  developing.  I  dared  not  cross  the  continent 
in  my  own  character.  It  was  necessary  that  I  should 
be  completely  lost  if  ever  I  was  to  see  Ernest  again, 
for  by  trailing  me  after  he  escaped,  he  would  be  caught 
once  more.     Again,  I  could  not  disguise  myself  as  a  pro- 


264  .  THE  IRON  HEEL 

letarian  and  travel.  There  remained  the  disguise  of  a 
member  of  the  Oligarchy.  While  the  arch-oligarchs 
were  no  more  than  a  handful,  there  were  myriads  of 
lesser  ones  of  the  type,  say,  of  Mr.  Wickson  —  men, 
worth  a  few  millions,  who  were  adherents  of  the  arch- 
oligarchs.  The  wives  and  daughters  of  these  lesser  oli- 
garchs were  legion,  and  it  was  decided  that  I  should 
assume  the  disguise  of  such  a  one.  A  few  years  later 
this  would  have  been  impossible,  because  the  passport 
system  was  to  become  so  perfect  that  no  man,  woman, 
nor  child  in  all  the  land  was  unregistered  and  unac- 
counted for  in  his  or  her  movements. 

When  the  time  was  ripe,  the  spies  were  thrown  off 
my  track.  An  hour  later  Avis  Everhard  was  no  more. 
At  that  time  one  Felice  Van  Verdighan,  accompanied 
by  two  maids  and  a  lap-dog,  with  another  maid  for  the 
lap-dog,1  entered  a  drawing-room  on  a  Pullman,2  and 
a  few  minutes  later  was  speeding  west. 

The  three  maids  who  accompanied  me  were  revo- 
lutionists. Two  were  members  of  the  Fighting  Groups, 
and  the  third,  Grace  Holbrook,  entered  a  group  the 
following  year,  and  six  months  later  was  executed  by  the 

1  This  ridiculous  picture  well  illustrates  the  heartless  conduct  of  the 
masters.  While  people  starved,  lap-dogs  were  waited  upon  by  maids. 
This  was  a  serious  masquerade  on  the  part  of  Avis  Everhard.  Life  and 
death  and  the  Cause  were  in  the  issue ;  therefore  the  picture  must  be 
accepted  as  a  true  picture.  It  affords  a  striking  commentary  of  the 
times. 

2  Pullman — the  designation  of  the  more  luxurious  railway  cars 
of  the  period  and  so  named  from  the  inventor. 


IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  SONOMA  265 

Iron  Heel.  She  it  was  who  waited  upon  the  dog.  Of 
the  other  two,  Bertha  Stole  disappeared  twelve  years 
later,  while  Anna  Roylston  still  lives  and  plays  an 
increasingly  important  part  in  the  Revolution.1 

Without  adventure  we  crossed  the  United  States  to 
California.  When  the  train  stopped  at  Sixteenth  Street 
Station,  in  Oakland,  we  alighted,  and  there  Felice  Van 
Verdighan,  with  her  two  maids,  her  lap-dog,  and  her 
lap-dog's  maid,  disappeared  forever.  The  maids, 
guided  by  trusty  comrades,  were  led  away.  Other  com- 
rades took  charge  of  me.  Within  half  an  hour  after 
leaving  the  train  I  was  on  board  a  small  fishing  boat 
and  out  oh  the  waters  of  San  Francisco  Bay.  The 
winds  baffled,  and  we  drifted  aimlessly  the  greater  part 
of  the  night.  But  I  saw  the  lights  of  Alcatraz  where 
Ernest  lay,  and  found  comfort  in  the  thought  of  near- 
ness to  him.  By  dawn,  what  with  the  rowing  of  the 
fishermen,  we  made  the  Marin  Islands.  Here  we  lay 
in  hiding  all  day,  and  on  the  following  night,  swept  on 
by  a  flood  tide  and  a  fresh  wind,  we  crossed  San  Pablo 
Bay  in  two  hours  and  ran  up  Petaluma  Creek. 

1  Despite  continual  and  almost  inconceivable  hazards,  Anna 
Roylston  lived  to  the  royal  age  of  ninety-one.  As  the  Pococks  defied 
the  executioners  of  the  Fighting  Groups,  so  she  defied  the  executioners 
of  the  Iron  Heel.  She  bore  a  charmed  life  and  prospered  amid  dangers 
and  alarms.  She  herself  was  an  executioner  for  the  Fighting  Groups, 
and,  known  as  the  Red  Virgin,  she  became  one  of  the  inspired  figures 
of  the  Revolution.  When  she  was  an  old  woman  of  sixty-nine  she 
shot  "Bloody"  Halcliffe  down  in  the  midst  of  his  armed  escort  and 
got  away  unscathed.  In  the  end  she  died  peaceably  of  old  age  in  a 
secret  refuge  of  the  revolutionists  in  the  Ozark  mountains. 


266  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Here  horses  were  ready  and  another  comrade,  and 
without  delay  we  were  away  through  the  starlight. 
To  the  north  I  could  see  the  loom  of  Sonoma  Moun- 
tain, toward  which  we  rode.  We  left  the  old  town  of 
Sonoma  to  the  right  and  rode  up  a  canyon  that  lay 
between  outlying  buttresses  of  the  mountain.  The 
wagon-road  became  a  wood-road,  the  wood-road  be- 
came a  cow-path,  and  the  cow-path  dwindled  away 
and  ceased  among  the  upland  pastures.  Straight  over 
Sonoma  Mountain  we  rode.  It  was  the  safest  route. 
There  was  no  one  to  mark  our  passing. 

Dawn  caught  us  on  the  northern  brow,  and  in  the  gray 
light  we  dropped  down  through  chaparral  into  red- 
wood canyons  deep  and  warm  with  the  breath  of  pass- 
ing summer.  It  was  old  country  to  me  that  I  knew  and 
loved,  and  soon  I  became  the  guide.  The  hiding-place 
was  mine.  I  had  selected  it.  We  let  down  the  bars 
and  crossed  an  upland  meadow.  Next,  we  went  over 
a  low,  oak-covered  ridge  and  descended  into  a  smaller 
meadow.  Again  we  climbed  a  ridge,  this  time  riding 
under  red-limbed  madronos  and  manzanitas  of  deeper 
red.  The  first  rays  of  the  sun  streamed  upon  our  backs 
as  we  climbed.  A  flight  of  quail  thrummed  off  through 
the  thickets.  A  big  jack-rabbit  crossed  our  path,  leap- 
ing swiftly  and  silently  like  a  deer.  And  then  a  deer, 
a  many-pronged  buck,  the  sun  flashing  red-gold  from 
neck  and  shoulders,  cleared  the  crest  of  the  ridge  before 
us  and  was  o;one. 


IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  SONOMA  267 

We  followed  in  his  wake  a  space,  then  dropped  down 
a  zigzag  trail  that  he  disdained  into  a  group  of  noble 
redwoods  that  stood  about  a  pool  of  water  murky  with 
minerals  from  the  mountain  side.  I  knew  every  inch 
of  the  way.  Once  a  writer  friend  of  mine  had  owned 
the  ranch;  but  he,  too,  had  become  a.  revolutionist, 
though  more  disastrously  than  I,  for  he  was  already 
dead  and  gone,  and  none  knew  where  nor  how.  He 
alone,  in  the  days  he  had  lived,  knew  the  secret  of  the 
hiding-place  for  which  I  was  bound.  He  had  bought 
the  ranch  for  beauty,  and  paid  a  round  price  for  it, 
much  to  the  disgust  of  the  local  farmers.  He  used  to 
tell  with  great  glee  how  they  were  wont  to  shake  their 
heads  mournfully  at  the  price,  to  accomplish  ponder- 
ously a  bit  of  mental  arithmetic,  and  then  to  say, 
"But  you  can't  make  six  per  cent  on  it." 

But  he  was  dead  now,  nor  did  the  ranch  descend  to 
his  children.  Of  all  men,  it  was  now  the  property  of 
Mr.  Wickson,  who  owned  the  whole  eastern  and  north- 
ern slopes  of  Sonoma  Mountain,  running  from  the 
Spreckels  estate  to  the  divide  of  Bennett  Valley.  Out 
of  it  he  had  made  a  magnificent  deer-park,  where,  over 
thousands  of  acres  of  sweet  slopes  and  glades  and  can- 
yons, the  deer  ran  almost  in  primitive  wildness.  The 
people  who  had  owned  the  soil  had  been  driven  away. 
A  state  home  for  the  feeble-minded  had  also  been  de- 
molished to  make  room  for  the  deer. 

To  cap  it  all,  Wickson's  hunting  lodge  was  a  quarter 


268  THE  IRON  HEEL 

of  a  mile  from  my  hiding-place.  This,  instead  of  being 
a  danger,  was  an  added  security.  We  were  sheltered 
under  the  very  aegis  of  one  of  the  minor  oligarchs. 
Suspicion,  by  the  nature  of  the  situation,  was  turned 
aside.  The  last  place  in  the  world  the  spies  of  the 
Iron  Heel  would  dream  of  looking  for  me,  and  for  Ernest 
when  he  joined  me,  was  Wickson's  deer-park. 

We  tied  our  horses  among  the  redwoods  at  the  pool. 
From  a  cache  behind  a  hollow  rotting  log  my  com- 
panion brought  out  a  variety  of  things,  —  a  fifty-pound 
sack  of  flour,  tinned  foods  of  all  sorts,  cooking  utensils, 
blankets,  a  canvas  tarpaulin,  books  and  writing  ma- 
terial, a  great  bundle  of  letters,  a  five-gallon  can  of 
kerosene,  an  oil  stove,  and,  last  and  most  important, 
a  large  coil  of  stout  rope.  So  large  was  the  supply  of 
things  that  a  number  of  trips  would  be  necessary  to 
carry  them  to  the  refuge. 

But  the  refuge  was  very  near.  Taking  the  rope  and 
leading  the  way,  I  passed  through  a  glade  of  tangled 
vines  and  bushes  that  ran  between  two  wooded  knolls. 
The  glade  ended  abruptly  at  the  steep  bank  of  a  stream. 
It  was  a  little  stream,  rising  from  springs,  and  the 
hottest  summer  never  dried  it  up.  On  every  hand 
were  tall  wooded  knolls,  a  group  of  them,  with  all  the 
seeming  of  having  been  flung  there  from  some  care- 
less Titan's  hand.  There  was  no  bed-rock  in  them. 
They  rose  from  their  bases  hundreds  of  feet,  and  they 
were  composed  of  red  volcanic  earth,  the  famous  wine- 


IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  SONOMA  269 

soil  of  Sonoma.  Through  these  the  tiny  stream  had 
cut  its  deep  and  precipitous  channel. 

It  was  quite  a  scramble  down  to  the  stream  bed,  and, 
once  on  the  bed,  we  went  down  stream  perhaps  for  a 
hundred  feet.  And  then  we  came  to  the  great  hole. 
There  was  no  warning  of  the  existence  of  the  hole,  nor 
was  it  a  hole  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word.  One 
crawled  through  tight-locked  briers  and  branches,  and 
found  oneself  on  the  very  edge,  peering  out  and  down 
through  a  green  screen.  A  couple  of  hundred  feet  in 
length  and  width,  it  was  half  of  that  in  depth.  Possibly 
because  of  some  fault  that  had  occurred  when  the 
knolls  were  flung  together,  and  certainly  helped  by 
freakish  erosion,  the  hole  had  been  scooped  out  in  the 
course  of  centuries  by  the  wash  of  water.  Nowhere  did 
the  raw  earth  appear.  All  was  garmented  by  vege- 
tation, from  tiny  maiden-hair  and  gold-back  ferns  to 
mighty  redwoods  and  Douglas  spruces.  These  great 
trees  even  sprang  out  from  the  walls  of  the  hole.  Some 
leaned  over  at  angles  as  great  as  forty-five  degrees, 
though  the  majority  towered  straight  up  from  the  soft 
and  almost  perpendicular  earth  walls. 

It  was  a  perfect  hiding-place.  No  one  ever  came 
there,  not  even  the  village  boys  of  Glen  Ellen.  Had 
this  hole  existed  in  the  bed  of  a  canyon  a  mile  long, 
or  several  miles  long,  it  would  have  been  well  known. 
But  this  was  no  canyon.  From  beginning  to  end  the 
length  of  the  stream  was  no  more  than  five  hundred 


270  THE  IRON  HEEL 

yards.  Three  hundred  yards  above  the  hole  the  stream 
took  its  rise  in  a  spring  at  the  foot  of  a  flat  meadow. 
A  hundred  yards  below  the  hole  the  stream  ran  out 
into  open  country,  joining  the  main  stream  and  flowing 
across  rolling  and  grass-covered  land. 

My  companion  took  a  turn  of  the  rope  around  a  tree, 
and  with  me  fast  on  the  other  end  lowered  away.  In 
no  time  I  was  on  the  bottom.  And  in  but  a  short  while 
he  had  carried  all  the  articles  from  the  cache  and 
lowered  them  down  to  me.  He  hauled  the  rope  up  and 
hid  it,  and  before  he  went  away  called  down  to  me  a 
cheerful  parting. 

Before  I  go  on  I  want  to  say  a  wTord  for  this  comrade, 
John  Carlson,  a  humble  figure  of  the  Revolution,  one  of 
the  countless  faithful  ones  in  the  ranks.  He  worked 
for  Wickson,  in  the  stables  near  the  hunting  lodge. 
In  fact,  it  was  on  Wickson's  horses  that  we  had  ridden 
over  Sonoma  Mountain.  For  nearly  twenty  years  now 
John  Carlson  has  been  custodian  of  the  refuge.  No 
thought  of  disloyalty,  I  am  sure,  has  ever  entered  his 
mind  during  all  that  time.  To  betray  his  trust  wTould 
have  been  in  his  mind  a  thing  undreamed.  He  was 
phlegmatic,  stolid  to  such  a  degree  that  one  could  not 
but  wonder  how  the  Revolution  had  an}^  meaning  to 
him  at  all.  And  yet  love  of  freedom  glowed  sombrely 
and  steadily  in  his  dim  soul.  In  ways  it  was  indeed 
good  that  he  was  not  flighty  and  imaginative.  He 
never  lost  his  head.     He  could  obey  orders,  and  he  was 


IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  SONOMA  271 

neither  curious  nor  garrulous.  Once  I  asked  how  it 
was  that  he  was  a  revolutionist. 

"When  I  was  a  young  man  I  was  a  soldier,"  was  his 
answer.  "It  was  in  Germany.  There  all  young  men 
must  be  in  the  army.  So  I  was  in  the  army.  There 
was  another  soldier  there,  a  young  man,  too.  His 
father  was  what  you  call  an  agitator,  and  his  father  was 
in  jail  for  lese  majesty  —  what  you  call  speaking  the 
truth  about  the  Emperor.  And  the  young  man,  the 
son,  talked  with  me  much  about  people,  and  work,  and 
the  robbery  of  the  people  by  the  capitalists.  He  made 
me  see  things  in  new  ways,  and  I  became  a  socialist. 
His  talk  was  very  true  and  good,  and  I  have  never  for- 
gotten. When  I  came  to  the  United  States  I  hunted 
up  the  socialists.  I  became  a  member  of  a  section  — 
that  was  in  the  day  of  the  S.  L.  P.  Then  later,  when 
the  split  came,  I  joined  the  local  of  the  S.  P.  I 
was  working  in  a  livery  stable  in  San  Francisco  then. 
That  was  before  the  Earthquake.  I  have  paid  my  dues 
for  twenty-two  years.  I  am  yet  a  member,  and  I  yet 
pay  my  dues,  though  it  is  very  secret  now.  I  will 
always  pay  my  dues,  and  when  the  cooperative  com- 
monwealth comes,  I  will  be  glad." 

Left  to  myself,  I  proceeded  to  cook  breakfast  on  the 
oil  stove  and  to  prepare  my  home.  Often,  in  the  early 
morning,  or  in  the  evening  after  dark,  Carlson  would 
steal  down  to  the  refuge  and  work  for  a  couple  of  hours. 
At  first  my  home  was  the  tarpaulin.     Later,  a  small 


272  THE  IRON  HEEL 

tent  was  put  up.  And  still  later,  when  we  became  as- 
sured of  the  perfect  security  of  the  place,  a  small  house 
was  erected.  This  house  was  completely  hidden  from 
any  chance  eye  that  might  peer  down  from  the  edge 
of  the  hole.  The  lush  vegetation  of  that  sheltered 
spot  made  a  natural  shield.  Also,  the  house  was  built 
against  the  perpendicular  wall;  and  in  the  wall  itself, 
shored  by  strong  timbers,  well  drained  and  ventilated, 
we  excavated  two  small  rooms.  Oh,  believe  me,  we 
had  many  comforts.  When  Biedenbach,  the  German 
terrorist,  hid  with  us  some  time  later,  he  installed  a 
smoke-consuming  device  that  enabled  us  to  sit  by 
crackling  wood  fires  on  winter  nights. 

And  here  I  must  say  a  word  for  that  gentle-souled 
terrorist,  than  whom  there  is  no  comrade  in  the  Revo- 
lution more  fearfully  misunderstood.  Comrade  Bieden- 
bach did  not  betray  the  Cause.  Nor  was  he  executed 
by  the  comrades  as  is  commonly  supposed.  This 
canard  was  circulated  by  the  creatures  of  the  Oligarchy. 
Comrade  Biedenbach  was  absent-minded,  forgetful. 
He  was  shot  by  one  of  our  lookouts  at  the  cave-refuge 
at  Carmel,  through  failure  on  his  part  to  remember  the 
secret  signals.  It  was  all  a  sad  mistake.  And  that  he 
betrayed  his  Fighting  Group  is  an  absolute  lie.  No 
truer,  more  loyal  man  ever  labored  for  the  Cause.1 

1  Search  as  we  may  through  all  the  material  of  those  times  +hat  has 
come  down  to  us,  we  can  find  no  clew  to  the  Biedenbach  here  referred 
to.  No  mention  is  made  of  him  anywhere  save  in  the  Everhard  Manu- 
script. 


IN  THE  SHADOW  OF  SONOMA  273 

For  nineteen  years  now  the  refuge  that  I  selected  has 
been  almost  continuously  occupied,  and  in  all'that  time, 
with  one  exception,  it  has  never  been  discovered  by  an 
outsider.  And  yet  it  was  only  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from 
Wickson's  hunting-lodge,  and  a  short  mile  from  the 
village  of  Glen  Ellen.  I  was  able,  always,  to  hear  the 
morning  and  evening  trains  arrive  and  depart,  and  I  used 
to  set  my  watch  by  the  whistle  at  the  brickyards.1 

1  If  the  curious  traveller  will  turn  south  from  Glen  Ellen,  he  will 
find  himself  on  a  boulevard  that  is  identical  with  the  old  county  road 
of  seven  centuries  ago.  A  quarter  of  a  mile  from  Glen  Ellen,  after 
the  second  bridge  is  passed,  to  the  right  will  be  noticed  a  barranca  that 
runs  like  a  scar  across  the  rolling  land  toward  a  group  of  wooded  knolls. 
The  barranca  is  the  site  of  the  ancient  right  of  way  that  in  the  time  of 
private  property  in  land  ran  across  the  holding  of  one  Chauvet,  a 
French  pioneer  of  California  who  came  from  his  native  country  in  the 
fabled  days  of  gold.  The  wooded  knolls  are  the  same  knolls  referred 
to  by  Avis  Everhard. 

The  Great  Earthquake  of  2368  a.d.  broke  off  the  side  of  one  of 
these  knolls  and  toppled  it  into  the  hole  where  the  Everhards  made 
their  refuge.  Since  the  finding  of  the  Manuscript  excavations  have 
been  made,  and  the  house,  the  two  cave  rooms,  and  all  the  accumu- 
lated rubbish  of  long  occupancy  have  been  brought  to  light.  Many 
valuable  relics  have  been  found,  among  which,  curious  to  relate,  is 
the  smoke-consuming  device  of  Biedenbach's  mentioned  in  the  narra- 
tive. Students  interested  in  such  matters  should  read  the  brochure 
of  Arnold  Bentham  soon  to  be  published. 

A  mile  northwest  from  the  wooded  knolls  brings  one  to  the  site  of 
Wake  Robin  Lodge  at  the  junction  of  Wild- Water  and  Sonoma  Creeks. 
It  may  be  noticed,  in  passing,  that  Wild- Water  was  originally  called 
Graham  Creek  and  was  so  named  on  the  early  local  maps.  But  the 
later  name  sticks.  It  was  at  Wake  Robin  Lodge  that  Avis  Everhard 
later  lived  for  short  periods,  when,  disguised  as  an  agent-provocateur 
of  the  Iron  Heel,  she  was  enabled  to  play  with  impunity  her  part  among 
men  and  events.  The  official  permission  to  occupy  Wake  Robin 
Lodge  is  still  on  the  records,  signed  by  no  less  a  man  than  Wickson, 
the  minor  oligarch  of  the  Manuscript. 

T 


CHAPTER  XIX 

TRANSFORMATION 

"You  must  make  yourself  over  again/'  Ernest  wrote 
to  me.  "You  must  cease  to  be.  You  must  become 
another  woman  —  and  not  merely  in  the  clothes  you 
wear,  but  inside  your  skin  under  the  clothes.  You 
must  make  yourself  over  again  so  that  even  I  would  not 
know  you  —  your  voice,  your  gestures,  your  manner- 
isms, your  carriage,  your  walk,  everything." 

This  command  I  obeyed.  Every  day  I  practised  for 
hours  in  burying  forever  the  old  Avis  Everhard  beneath 
the  skin  of  another  woman  whom  I  may  call  my  other 
self.  It  was  only  by  long  practice  that  such  results 
could  be  obtained.  In  the  mere  detail  of  voice  intona- 
tion I  practised  almost  perpetually  till  the  voice  of  my 
new  self  became  fixed,  automatic.  It  was  this  auto- 
matic assumption  of  a  role  that  was  considered  imper- 
ative. One  must  become  so  adept  as  to  deceive  one- 
self. It  was  like  learning  a  new  language,  say  the 
French.  At  first  speech  in  French  is  self-conscious,  a" 
matter  of  the  will.     The  student  thinks  in  English  and 

274 


TRANSFORMATION  275 

then  transmutes  into  French,  or  reads  in  French  but 
transmutes  into  English  before  he  can  understand. 
Then  later,  becoming  firmly  grounded,  automatic,  the 
student  reads,  writes,  and  thinks  in  French,  without  any 
recourse  to  English  at  all. 

And  so  with  our  disguises.  It  was  necessary  for  us 
to  practise  until  our  assumed  roles  became  real ;  until 
to  be  oUr  original  selves  would  require  a  watchful  and 
strong  exercise  of  will.  Of  course,  at  first,  much  was 
mere  blundering  experiment.  We  were  creating  a  new 
art,  and  we  had  much  to  discover.  But  the  work  was 
going  on  everywhere ;  masters  in  the  art  were  develop- 
ing, and  a  fund  of  tricks  and  expedients  was  being  ac- 
cumulated. This  fund  became  a  sort  of  text-book  that 
was  passed  on,  a  part  of  the  curriculum,  as  it  were,  of 
the  school  of  Revolution.1 

It  was  at  this  tune  that  my  father  disappeared. 
His  letters,  which  had  come  to  me  regularly,  ceased. 
He  no  longer  appeared  at  our  Pell  Street  quarters. 
Our  comrades  sought  him  everywhere.  Through  our 
secret  service  we  ransacked  every  prison  in  the  land. 
But  he  was  lost  as  completely  as  if  the  earth  had  swal- 

1  Disguise  did  become  a  veritable  art  during  that  period.  The 
revolutionists  maintained  schools  of  acting  in  all  their  refuges.  They 
scorned  accessories,  such  as  wigs  and  beards,  false  eyebrows,  and  such 
aids  of  the  theatrical  actors.  The  game  of  revolution  was  a  game  of 
life  and  death,  and  mere  accessories  were  traps.  Disguise  had  to  be 
fundamental,  intrinsic,  part  and  parcel  of  one's  being,  second  nature. 
The  Red  Virgin  is  reported  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  adept  in  the 
art,  to  which  must  be  ascribed  her  long  and  successful  career. 


276  THE  IRON  HEEL 

lowed  him  up,  and  to  this  day  no  clew  to  his  end  has  ever 
been  discovered.1 

Six  lonely  months  I  spent  in  the  refuge,  but  they  were 
not  idle  months.  Our  organization  went  on  apace,  and 
there  were  mountains  of  work  always  waiting  to  be 
done.  Ernest  and  his  fellow-leaders,  from  their  prisons, 
decided  what  should  be  done ;  and  it  remained  for  us  on 
the  outside  to  do  it.  There  was  the  organization  of  the 
mouth-to-mouth  propaganda;  the  organization,  with 
all  its  ramifications,  of  our  spy  system;  the  establish- 
ment of  our  secret  printing-presses ;  and  the  establish- 
ment of  our  underground  railways,  which  meant  the 
knitting  together  of  all  our  myriads  of  places  of  refuge, 
and  the  formation  of  new  refuges  where  links  were 
missing  in  the  chains  we  ran  over  all  the  land. 

So  I  say,  the  work  was  never  done.  At  the  end  of  six 
months  my  loneliness  was  broken  by  the  arrival  of  two 
comrades.  They  were  young  girls,  brave  souls  and 
passionate  lovers  of  liberty:  Lora  Peterson,  who  dis- 
appeared in  1922,  and  Kate  Bierce,  who  later  married 
Du  Bois,2  and  who  is  still  with  us  with  eyes  lifted  to 
to-morrow's  sun,  that  heralds  in  the  new  age. 

1  Disappearance  was  one  of  the  horrors  of  the  time.  As  a  motif, 
in  song  and  story,  it  constantly  crops  up.  It  was  an  inevitable  con- 
comitant of  the  subterranean  warfare  that  raged  through  those  three 
centuries.  This  phenomenon  was  almost  as  common  in  the  oligarch 
class  and  the  labor  castes,  as  it  was  in  the  ranks  of  the  revolutionists. 
Without  warning,  without  trace,  men  and  women,  and  even  children, 
disappeared  and  were  seen  no  more,  their  ends  shrouded  in  mystery. 

2  Du  Bois,  the  present  librarian  of  Ardis,  is  a  lineal  descendant 
of  this  revolutionary  pair. 


TRANSFORMATION  277 

The  two  girls  arrived  in  a  flurry  of  excitement,  danger, 
and  sudden  death.  In  the  crew  of  the  fishing  boat  that 
-conveyed  them  across  San  Pablo  Bay  was  a  spy.  A 
creature  of  the  Iron  Heel,  he  had  successfully  mas- 
queraded as  a  revolutionist  and  penetrated  deep  into  the 
secrets  of  our  organization.  Without  doubt  he  was  on 
my  trail,  for  we  had  long  since  learned  that  my  dis- 
appearance had  been  cause  of  deep  concern  to  the 
secret  service  of  the  Oligarchy.  Luckily,  as  the  out- 
come proved,  he  had  not  divulged  his  discoveries  to 
any  one.  He  had  evidently  delayed  reporting,  pre- 
ferring to  wait  until  he  had  brought  things  to  a  success- 
ful conclusion  by  discovering  my  hiding-place  and  cap- 
turing me.  His  information  died  with  him.  Under 
some  pretext,  after  the  girls  had  landed  at  Petaluma 
Creek  and  taken  to  the  horses,  he  managed  to  get  away 
from  the  boat. 

Part  way  up  Sonoma  Mountain,  John  Carlson  let  the 
girls  go  on,  leading  his  horse,  while  he  went  back  on 
foot.  His  suspicions  had  been  aroused.  He  captured 
the  spy,  and  as  to  what  then  happened,  Carlson  gave 
us  a  fair  idea. 

I  fixed  him,"  was  Carlson's  unimaginative  way  of 
describing  the  affair.  "I  fixed  him,"  he  repeated,  while 
a  sombre  light  burnt  in  his  eyes,  and  his  huge,  toil- 
distorted  hands  opened  and  closed  eloquently.  "He 
made  no  noise.  I  hid  him,  and  to-night  I  will  go  back 
and  bury  him  deep." 


278  THE  IRON  HEEL 

During  that  period  I  used  to  marvel  at  my  own 
metamorphosis.  At  times  it  seemed  impossible,  either 
that  I  had  ever  lived  a  placid,  peaceful  life  in  a  college 
town,  or  else  that  I  had  become  a  revolutionist  inured  to 
scenes  of  violence  and  death.  One  or  the  other  could 
not  be.  One  was  real,  the  other  was  a  dream,  but  which 
was  which?  Was  this  present  life  of  a  revolutionist, 
hiding  in  a  hole,  a  nightmare  ?  or  was  I  a  revolutionist 
who  had  somewhere,  somehow,  dreamed  that  in  some 
former  existence  I  had  lived  in  Berkeley  and  never 
known  of  life  more  violent  than  teas  and  dances,  de- 
bating societies,  and  lecture  rooms?  But  then  I  sup- 
pose this  was  a  common  experience  of  all  of  us  who  had 
rallied  under  the  red  banner  of  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

I  often  remembered  figures  from  that  other  life, 
and,  curiously  enough,  they  appeared  and  disappeared, 
now  and  again,  in  my  new  life.  There  was  Bishop 
Morehouse.  In  vain  we  searched  for  him  after  our  or- 
ganization had  developed.  He  had  been  transferred 
from  asylum  to  asylum.  We  traced  him  from  the  state 
hospital  for  the  insane  at  Napa  to  the  one  in  Stockton, 
and  from  there  to  the  one  in  the  Santa  Clara  Valley 
called  Agnews,  and  there  the  trail  ceased.  There  was 
no  record  of  his  death.  In  some  way  he  must  have 
escaped.  Little  did  I  dream  of  the  awful  manner  in 
which  I  was  to  see  him  once  again  —  the  fleeting  glimpse 
of  him  in  the  whirlwind  carnage  of  the  Chicago  Com- 
mune. 


TRANSFORMATION  279 

Jackson,  who  had  lost  his  arm  in  the  Sierra  Mills 
and  who  had  been  the  cause  of  my  own  conversion  into 
a  revolutionist,  I  never  saw  again ;    but  we  all  knew 
what  he  did  before   he  died.     He   never  joined  the 
revolutionists.     Embittered  by  his  fate,  brooding  over 
his  wrongs,   he  became   an   anarchist  —  not   a  philo- 
sophic anarchist,  but  a  mere  animal,  mad  with  hate 
and  lust  for  revenge.     And  well  he  revenged  himself. 
Evading  the  guards,  in  the  night-time  while  all  were 
asleep,  he  blew  the  Pertonwaithe  palace  into  atoms. 
,  Not  a  soul  escaped,  not  even  the  guards.     And  in  prison, 
while  awaiting  trial,  he  suffocated  himself  under  his 
blankets. 

Dr.  Hammerfield  and  Dr.  Ballingford  achieved  quite 
different  fates  from  that  of  Jackson.     They  have  been 
faithful  to  their  salt,  and  they  have  been  correspond- 
ingly rewarded  with  ecclesiastical  palaces  wherein  they 
dwell  at  peace  with  the  world.     Both  are  apologists 
for  the  Oligarchy.     Both  have  grown  very  fat.     "Dr. 
Hammerfield/'  as  Ernest  once  said,  "has  succeeded  in 
modifying  his  metaphysics  so  as  to  give  God's  sanction 
to  the  Iron  Heel,  and  also  to  include  much  worship  of 
beauty  and  to  reduce  to  an  invisible  wraith  the  gaseous 
vertebrate  described  by  Haeckel  — the  difference  be- 
tween Dr.  Hammerfield  and  Dr.  Ballingford  being  that 
the  latter  has  made  the  God  of  the  oligarchs  a  little 
more  gaseous  and  a  little  less  vertebrate." 

Peter  Donnelly,  the  scab  foreman  at  the  Sierra  Mills 


280  THE  IRON  HEEL 

whom  I  encountered  while  investigating  the  case  of 
Jackson,  was  a  surprise  to  all  of  us.  In  1918  I  was 
present  at  a  meeting  of  the  'Frisco  Reds.  Of  all  Our 
Fighting  Groups  this  one  was  the  most  formidable, 
ferocious,  and  merciless.  It  was  really  not  a  part  of 
our  organization.  Its  members  were  fanatics,  mad- 
men. We  dared  not  encourage  such  a  spirit.  On  the 
other  hand,  though  they  did  not  belong  to  us,  we  re- 
mained on  friendly  terms  with  them.  It  was  a  matter 
of  vital  importance  that  brought  me  there  that  night. 
I,  alone  in  the  midst  of  a  score  of  men,  was  the  only 
person  unmasked.  After  the  business  that  brought 
me  there  was  transacted,  I  was  led  away  by  one  of 
them.  In  a  dark  passage  this  guide  struck  a  match, 
and,  holding  it  close  to  his  face,  slipped  back  his  mask. 
For  a  moment  I  gazed  upon  the  passion-wrought 
features  of  Peter  Donnelly.  Then  the  match  went 
out. 

"I  just  wanted  you  to  know  it  was  me,"  he  said  in 
the  darkness.  "D'you  remember  Dallas,  the  superin- 
tendent?" 

I  nodded  at  recollection  of  the  vulpine-faced  super- 
intendent of  the  Sierra  Mills. 

"Well,  I  got  him  first,"  Donnelly  said  with  pride. 
"'Twas  after  that  I  joined  the  Reds." 

"But  how  comes  it  that  you  are  here?"  I  queried. 
"Your  wife  and  children?" 

"Dead,"    he    answered.     "That's    why.     No,"    he 


TRANSFORMATION  281 

went  on  hastily,  "  'tis  not  revenge  for  them.  They  died 
easily  in  their  beds  —  sickness,  you  see,  one  time  and 
another.  They  tied  my  arms  while  they  lived.  And 
now  that  they're  gone,  'tis  revenge  for  my  blasted  man- 
hood I'm  after.  I  was  once  Peter  Donnelly,  the  scab 
foreman.  But  to-night  I'm  Number  27  of  the  'Frisco 
Reds.     Come  on  now,  and  I'll  get  you  out  of  this." 

More  I  heard  of  him  afterward.  In  his  own  way 
he  had  told  the  truth  when  he  said  all  were  dead.  But 
one  lived,  Timothy,  and  him  his  father  considered  dead 
because  he  had  taken  service  with  the  Iron  Heel  in  the 
Mercenaries.1  A  member  of  the  'Frisco  Beds  pledged 
himself  to  twelve  annual  executions.  The  penalty  for 
failure  was  death.  A  member  who  failed  to  complete 
his  number  committed  suicide.  These  executions  were 
not  haphazard.  This  group  of  madmen  met  frequently 
and  passed  wholesale  judgments  upon  offending  mem- 
bers and  servitors  of  the  Oligarchy.  The  executions 
were  afterward  apportioned  by  lot. 

In  fact,  the  business  that  brought  me  there  the  night 
of  my  visit  was  such  a  trial.  One  of  our  own  comrades, 
who  for  years  had  successfully  maintained  himself  in  a 

1  In  addition  to  the  labor  castes,  there  arose  another  caste,  the  \ 
military.  A  standing  army  of  professional  soldiers  was  created,  offi- 
cered by  members  of  the  Oligarchy  and  known  as  the  Mercenaries. 
This  institution  took  the  place  of  the  militia,  which  had  proved  im- 
practicable under  the  new  regime.  Outside  the  regular  secret  service 
of  the  Iron  Heel,  there  was  further  established  a  secret  service  of  the 
Mercenaries,  this  latter  forming  a  connecting  link  between  the  police 
and  the  military. 


282  THE  IRON  HEEL 

clerical  position  in  the  local  bureau  of  the  secret  service 
of  the  Iron  Heel,  had  fallen  under  the  ban  of  the  'Frisco 
Reds  and  was  being  tried.  Of  course  he  was  not  pres- 
ent, and  of  course  his  judges  did  not  know  that  he  was 
one  of  our  men.  My  mission  had  been  to  testify  to  his 
identity  and  loyalty.  It  may  be  wondered  how  we 
came  to  know  of  the  affair  at  all.  The  explanation  is 
simple.  One  of  our  secret  agents  was  a  member  of  the 
'Frisco  Reds.  It  was  necessary  for  us  to  keep  an  eye 
on  friend  as  well  as  foe,  and  this  group  of  madmen  was 
not  too  unimportant  to  escape  our  surveillance. 

But  to  return  to  Peter  Donnelly  and  his  son.  All 
went  well  with  Donnelly  until,  in  the  following  year,  he 
found  among  the  sheaf  of  executions  that  fell  to  him 
the  name  of  Timothy  Donnelly.  Then  it  was  that 
that  family  clannishness,  which  was  his  to  so  extraordi- 
nar}'-  a  degree,  asserted  itself.  To  save  his  son,  he  be- 
trayed his  comrades.  In  this  he  was  partially  blocked, 
but  a  dozen  of  the  'Frisco  Reds  were  executed,  and  the 
group  was  well-nigh  destroyed.  In  retaliation,  the 
survivors  meted  out  to  Donnelly  the  death  he  had 
earned  by  his  treason. 

Nor  did  Timothy  Donnelly  long  survive.  The  'Frisco 
Reds  pledged  themselves  to  his  execution.  Every  ef- 
fort was  made  by  the  Oligarchy  to  save  him.  He  was 
transferred  from  one  part  of  the  country  to  another. 
.Three  of  the  Reels  lost  their  lives  in  vain  efforts  to  get 
him.     The  Group  was  composed  only  of  men.     In  the 


TRANSFORMATION  283 

end  they  fell  back  on  a  woman,  one  of  our  comrades, 
and  none  other  than  Anna  Roylston.  Our  Inner  Circle 
forbade  her,  but  she  had  ever  a  will  of  her  own  and  dis- 
dained discipline.  Furthermore,  she  was  a  genius  and 
lovable,  and  we  could  never  discipline  her  anyway. 
She  is  in  a  class  by  herself  and  not  amenable  to  the 
ordinary  standards  of  the  revolutionists. 

Despite  our  refusal  to  grant  permission  to  do  the 
deed,  she  went  on  with  it.  Now  Anna  Roylston  was  a 
fascinating  woman.  All  she  had  to  do  was  to  beckon 
a  man  to  her.  She  broke  the  hearts  of  scores  of  our 
young  comrades,  and  scores  of  others  she  captured,  and 
by  their  heart-strings  led  into  our  organization.  Yet 
she  steadfastly  refused  to  marry.  She  dearly  loved 
children,  but  she  held  that  a  child  of  her  own  would 
claim  her  from  the  Cause,  and  that  it  was  the  Cause  to 
which  her  life  was  devoted. 

It  was  an  easy  task  for  Anna  Roylston  to  win  Timothy 
Donnelly.  Her  conscience  did  not  trouble  her,  for  at 
that  very  time  occurred  the  Nashville  Massacre,  when 
the  Mercenaries,  Donnelly  in  command,  literally  mur- 
dered eight  hundred  weavers  of  that  city.  But  she 
did  not  kill  Donnelly.  She  turned  him  over,  a  prisoner, 
to  the  'Frisco  Reds.  This  happened  only  last  year, 
and  now  she  has  been  renamed.  The  revolutionists 
everywhere  are  calling  her  the  "Red  Virgin."1 

1  It  was  not  until  the  Second  Revolt  was  crushed,  that  the  'Frisco 
Reds  flourished  again.  And  for  two  generations  the  Group  flour- 
ished.    Then  an  agent  of  the  Iron  Heel  managed  to  become  a  mem- 


284  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Colonel  Ingram  and  Colonel  Van  Gilbert  are  two 
more  familiar  figures  that  I  was  later  to  encounter. 
Colonel  Ingram  rose  high  in  the  Oligarchy  and  became 
Minister  to  Germany.  He  was  cordially  detested  by 
the  proletariat  of  both  countries.  It  was  in  Berlin 
that  I  met  him,  where,  as  an  accredited  international 
spy  of  the  Iron  Heel,  I  was  received  by  him  and  afforded 
much  assistance.  Incidentally,  I  may  state  that  in 
my  dual  role  I  managed  a  few  important  things  for 
the  Revolution. 

Colonel  Van  Gilbert  became  known  as  " Snarling" 
Van  Gilbert.  His  important  part  was  played  in 
drafting  the  new  code  after  the  Chicago  Commune. 
But  before  that,  as  trial  judge,  he  had  earned  sentence 
of  death  by  his  fiendish  malignancy.  I  was  one  of 
those  that  tried  him  and  passed  sentence  upon  him. 
Anna  Roylston  carried  out  the  execution. 

Still  another  figure  arises  out  of  the  old  life  —  Jack- 
son's lawyer.  Least  of  all  would  I  have  expected  again 
to  meet  this  man,  Joseph  Hurd.  It  was  a  strange 
meeting.  Late  at  night,  two  years  after  the  Chicago 
Commune,  Ernest  and  I  arrived  together  at  the  Benton 
Harbor  refuge.  This  was  in  Michigan,  across  the  lake 
from  Chicago.  We  arrived  just  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
trial  of  a  spy.     Sentence  of  death  had  been  passed,  and 

ber,  penetrated  all  its  secrets,  and  brought  about  its  total  annihilation. 
This  occurred  in  2002  a.d.  The  members  were  executed  one  at  a  time, 
at  intervals  of  three  weeks,  and  their  bodies  exposed  in  the  labor- 
ghetto  of  San  Francisco. 


TRANSFORMATION  285 

he  was  being  led  away.     Such  was  the  scene  as  we  came 
upon  it.     The  next  moment  the  wretched  man  had 
wrenched  free  from  his  captors  and  flung  himself  at 
my  feet,  his  arms  clutching  me  about  the  knees  in  a 
vicelike  grip  as  he  prayed  in  a  frenzy  for  mercy.     As  he 
turned  his  agonized  face  up  to  me,  I  recognized  him 
as  Joseph  Hurd.     Of  all  the  terrible  things  I  have  wit- 
nessed, never  have  I  been  so  unnerved  as  by  this  frantic 
creature's  pleading  for  life.    He  was  mad  for  life.    It  was 
pitiable.     He  refused  to  let  go  of  me,  despite  the  hands 
of  a  dozen  comrades.     And  when  at  last  he  was  dragged 
shrieking  away,  I  sank  down  fainting  upon  the  floor. 
It  is  far  easier  to  see  brave  men  die  than  to  hear  a 
coward  beg  for  life.1 

1  The  Benton  Harbor  refuge  was  a  catacomb,  the  entrance  of  which 
was  cunningly  contrived  by  way  of  a  well.  It  has  been  maintained  in  a 
fair  state  of  preservation,  and  the  curious  visitor  may  to-day  tread 
its  labyrinths  to  the  assembly  hall,  where,  without  doubt,  occurred 
the  scene  described  by  Avis  Everhard.  Farther  on  are  the  cells  where 
the  prisoners  were  confined,  and  the  death  chamber  where  the  execu- 
tions took  place.  Beyond  is  the  cemetery-  long,  winding  galleries 
hewn  out  of  the  solid  rock,  with  recesses  on  either  hand,  wherein  tier 
above  tier,  he  the  revolutionists  just  as  they  were  laid  away  by  their 
comrades  long  years  agone. 


CHAPTER  XX 

A   LOST  OLIGARCH 

But  in  remembering  the  old  life  I  have  run  ahead 
of  my  story  into  the  new  life.  The  wholesale  jail  de- 
livery did  not  occur  until  well  along  into  1915.  Com- 
plicated as  it  was,  it  was  carried  through  without  a 
hitch,  and  as  a  very  creditable  achievement  it  cheered 
us  on  in  our  work.  From  Cuba  to  California,  out  of 
scores  of  jails,  military  prisons,  and  fortresses,  in  a  single 
night,  we  delivered  fifty-one  of  our  fifty-two  Congress- 
men, and  in  addition  over  three  hundred  other  leaders. 
There  was  not  a  single  instance  of  miscarriage.  Not 
only  did  they  escape,  but  every  one  of  them  won  to  the 
refuges  as  planned.  The  one  comrade  Congressman 
we  did  not  get  was  Arthur  Simpson,  and  he  had  already 
died  in  Cabanas  after  cruel  tortures. 

The  eighteen  months  that  followed  was  perhaps  the 
happiest  period  of  my  life  with  Ernest.  During  that 
time  we  were  never  apart.  Later,  when  we  went  back 
into  the  world,  we  were  separated  much.  Not  more 
impatiently  do  I  await  the  flame  of  to-morrow's  re- 
volt than  did  I  that  night  await  the  coming  of  Ernest. 
I  had  not  seen  him  for  so  long,  and  the  thought  of  a 

possible  hitch  or  error  in  our  plans  that  would  keep  him 

286 


A  LOST  OLIGARCH  287 

still  in  his  island  prison  almost  drove  me  mad.  The 
hours  passed  like  ages.  I  was  all  alone.  Biedenbach, 
and  three  young  men  who  had  been  living  in  the  refuge, 
were  out  and  over  the  mountain,  heavily  armed  and 
prepared  for  anything.  The  refuges  all  over  the  land 
were  quite  empty,  I  imagine,  of  comrades  that  night. 

Just  as  the  sky  paled  with  the  first  warning  of  dawn, 
I  heard  the  signal  from  above  and  gave  the  answer. 
In  the  darkness  I  almost  embraced  Biedenbach,  who 
came  down  first ;  but  the  next  moment  I  was  in  Ernest's 
arms.  And  in  that  moment,  so  complete  had  been  my 
transformation,  I  discovered  it  was  only  by  an  effort 
of  will  that  I  could  be  the  old  Avis  Everhard,  with  the 
old  mannerisms  and  smiles,  phrases  and  intonations  of 
voice.  It  was  by  strong  effort  only  that  I  was  able  to 
maintain  my  old  identity;  I  could  not  allow  myself 
to  forget  for  an  instant,  so  automatically  imperative 
had  become  the  new  personality  I  had  created. 

Once  inside  the  little  cabin,  I  saw  Ernest's  face  in  the 
light.  With  the  exception  of  the  prison  pallor,  there 
was  no  change  in  him  —  at  least,  not  much.  He  was 
my  same-  lover-husband  and  hero.  And  yet  there  was 
a  certain  ascetic  lengthening  of  the  lines  of  his  face. 
But  he  could  well  stand  it,  for  it  seemed  to  add  a 
certain  nobility  of  refinement  to  the  riotous  excess  of 
life  that  had  alwa}^s  marked  his  features.  He  might 
have  been  a  trifle  graver  than  of  yore,  but  the  glint  of 
laughter  still  was  in  his  eyes.     He  was  twenty  pounds 


288  THE  IRON  HEEL 

lighter,  but  in  splendid  physical  condition.  He  had 
kept  up  exercise  during  the  whole  period  of  confine- 
ment, and  his  muscles  were  like  iron.  In  truth,  he  was 
in  better  condition  than  when  he  had  entered  prison. 
Hours  passed  before  his  head  touched  pillow  and  I  had 
soothed  him  off  to  sleep.  But  there  was  no  sleep  for  me. 
I  was  too  happy,  and  the  fatigue  of  jail-breaking  and 
riding  horseback  had  not  been  mine. 

While  Ernest  slept,  I  changed  my  dress,  arranged  my 
hair  differently,  and  came  back  to  my  new  automatic 
self.  Then,  when  Biedenbach  and  the  other  com- 
rades awoke,  with  their  aid  I  concocted  a  little  con- 
spiracy. All  was  ready,  and  we  were  in  the  cave-room 
that  served  for  kitchen  and  dining  room  when  Ernest 
opened  the  door  and  entered.  At  that  moment  Bie- 
denbach addressed  me  as  Mary,  and  I  turned  and  an- 
swered him.  Then  I  glanced  at  Ernest  with  curious 
interest,  such  as  any  young  comrade  might  betray  on 
seeing  for  the  first  time  so  noted  a  hero  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. But  Ernest's  glance  took  me  in  and  quested  im- 
patiently past  and  around  the  room.  The  next  mo- 
ment I  was  being  introduced  to  him  as  Mary  Holmes. 

To  complete  the  deception,  an  extra  plate  was  laid, 
and  when  we  sat  down  to  table  one  chair  was  not  oc- 
cupied. I  could  have  cried  out  with  joy  as  I  noted 
Ernest's  increasing  uneasiness  and  impatience.  Finally 
he  could  stand  it  no  longer. 

" Where's  my  wife?"    he  demanded  bluntly. 


A  LOST  OLIGARCH  289 

"She  is  still  asleep,"  I  answered. 

It  was  the  crucial  moment.  But  my  voice  was  a 
strange  voice,  and  in  it  he  recognized  nothing  familiar. 
The  meal  went  on.  I  talked  a  great  deal,  and  enthu- 
siastically, as  a  hero-worshipper  might  talk,  and  it  was 
obvious  that  he  was  my  hero.  I  rose  to  a  climax  of 
enthusiasm  and  worship,  and,  before  he  could  guess  my 
intention,  threw  my  arms  around  his  neck  and  kissed 
him  on  the  lips.  He  held  me  from  him  at  arm's  length 
and  stared  about  in  annoyance  and  perplexity.  The 
four  men  greeted  him  with  roars  of  laughter,  and  ex- 
planations were  made.  At  first  he  was  sceptical.  He 
scrutinized  me  keenly  and  was  half  convinced,  then 
shook  his  head  and  would  not  believe.  It  was  not 
until  I  became  the  old  Avis  Everhard  and  whispered 
secrets  in  his  ear  that  none  knew  but  he  and  Avis 
Everhard,  that  he  accepted  me  as  his  really,  truly  wife. 

It  was  later  in  the  day  that  he  took  me  in  his  arms, 
manifesting  great  embarrassment  and  claiming  polyga- 
mous emotions. 

"  You  are  my  Avis,"  he  said,  "and  you  are  also  some 
one  else.  You  are  two  women,  and  therefore  you  are 
my  harem.  At  any  rate,  we  are  safe  now.  If  the 
United  States  becomes  too  hot  for  us,  why,  I  have 
qualified  for  citizenship  in  Turkey."  1 

Life  became  for  me  very  happy  in  the  refuge.     It  is 

true,  we  worked  hard  and  for  long  hours ;  but  we  worked 

1  At  that  time  polygamy  was  still  practised  in  Turkey. 
v 


290  THE  IRON  HEEL 

together.  We  had  each  other  for  eighteen  precious 
months,  and  we  were  not  lonely,  for  there  was  always 
a  coming  and  going  of  leaders  and  comrades  —  strange 
voices  from  the  under-world  of  intrigue  and  revolution, 
bringing  stranger  tales  of  strife  and  war  from  all  our 
battle-line.  And  there  was  much  fun  and  delight. 
We  were  not  mere  gloomy  conspirators.  We  toiled 
hard  and  suffered  greatly,  filled  the  gaps  in  our  ranks 
and  went  on,  and  through  all  the  labor  and  the  play 
and  interplay  of  life  and  death  we  found  time  to  laugh 
and  love.  There  were  artists,  scientists,  scholars, 
musicians,  and  poets  among  us ;  and  in  that  hole  in  the 
ground  culture  was  higher  and  finer  than  in  the  palaces 
or  wonder-cities  of  the  oligarchs.  In  truth,  many  of 
our  comrades  toiled  at  making  beautiful  those  same 
palaces  and  wonder-cities.1 

Nor  were  we  confined  to  the  refuge  itself.  Often  at 
night  we  rode  over  the  mountains  for  exercise,  and  we 
rode  on  Wickson's  horses.  If  only  he  knew  how  many 
revolutionists  his  horses  have  carried  !  We  even  went 
on  picnics  to  isolated  spots  we  knew,  where  we  re- 
mained all  day,  going  before  daylight  and  returning 
after  dark.    Also,  we  used  Wickson's  cream  and  butter ; 2 

1  This  is  not  braggadocio  on  the  part  of  Avis  Everhard.  The 
flower  of  the  artistic  and  intellectual  world  were  revolutionists.  With 
the  exception  of  a  few  of  the  musicians  and  singers,  and  of  a  few  of  the 
oligarchs,  all  the  great  creators  of  the  period  whose  names  have  come 
down  to  us,  were  revolutionists. 

2  Even  as  late  as  that  period,  cream  and  butter  were  still  crudely 
extracted  from  cow's  milk.  The  laboratory  preparation  of  foods  had 
not  yet  begun. 


A  LOST  OLIGARCH  291 

and  Ernest  was  not  above  shooting  Wickson's  quail 
and  rabbits,  and,  on  occasion,  his  young  bucks. 

Indeed,  it  was  a  safe  refuge.  I  have  said  that  it  was 
discovered  only  once,  and  this  brings  me  to  the  clearing 
up  of  the  mystery  of  the  disappearance  of  young  Wick- 
son.  Now  that  he  is  dead,  I  am  free  to  speak.  There 
was  a  nook  on  the  bottom  of  the  great  hole  where  the 
sun  shone  for  several  hours  and  which  was  hidden  from 
above.  Here  we  had  carried  many  loads  of  gravel  from 
the  creek-bed,  so  that  it  was  dry  and  warm,  a  pleasant 
basking  place ;  and  here,  one  afternoon,  I  was  drowsing, 
half  asleep,  over  a  volume  of  Mendenhall.1  I  was  so 
comfortable  and  secure  that  even  his  flaming  lyrics 
failed  to  stir  me. 

I  was  aroused  by  a  clod  of  earth  striking  at  my  feet. 
Then,  from  above,  I  heard  a  sound  of  scrambling.  The 
next  moment  a  young  man,  with  a  final  slide  down  the 
crumbling  wall,  alighted  at  my  feet.  It  was  Philip 
Wickson,  though  I  did  not  know  him  at  the  time.  He 
looked  at  me  coolly  and  uttered  a  low  whistle  of  surprise. 

"Well,"  he  said ;  and  the  next  moment,  cap  in  hand, 
he  was  saying,  "I  beg  jour  pardon.  I  did  not  expect 
to  find  any  one  here." 

1  In  all  the  extant  literature  and  documents  of  that  period,  contin- 
ual reference  is  made  to  the  poems  of  Rudolph  Mendenhall.  By  his 
comrades  he  was  called  "The  Flame."  He  was  undoubtedly  a  great 
genius;  yet,  beyond  weird  and  haunting  fragments  of  his  verse, 
quoted  in  the  writings  of  others,  nothing  of  his  has  come  down  to  us, 
He  was  executed  by  the  Iron  Heel  in  1928  a.d. 


292  THE  IRON  HEEL 

I  was  not  so  cool.  I  was  still  a  tyro  so  far  as  con- 
cerned knowing  how  to  behave  in  desperate  circum- 
stances. Later  on,  when  I  was  an  international  spy, 
I  should  have  been  less  clumsy,  I  am  sure.  As  it  was, 
I  scrambled  to  my  feet  and  cried  out  the  danger  call. 

"Why  did  you  do  that?"  he  asked,  looking  at  me 
searchingly. 

It  was  evident  that  he  had  had  no  suspicion  of  our 
presence  when  making  the  descent.  I  recognized  this 
with  relief. 

"For  what  purpose  do  you  think  I  did  it?"  I  coun- 
tered.    I  was  indeed  clumsy  in  those  days. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  answered,  shaking  his  head. 
"Unless  you've  got  friends  about.  Anyway,  you've  got 
some  explanations  to  make.  I  don't  like  the  look  of  it. 
You  are  trespassing.     This  is  my  father's  land,  and —  " 

But  at  that  moment,  Biedenbach,  ever  polite  and 
gentle,  said  from  behind  him  in  a  low  voice,  "Hands  up, 
my  young  sir." 

Young  Wickson  put  his  hands  up  first,  then  turned 
to  confront  Biedenbach,  who  held  a  thirty-thirty  auto- 
matic rifle  on  him.     Wickson  was  imperturbable. 

"Oh,  ho,"  he  said,  "a  nest  of  revolutionists  —  and 
quite  a  hornet's  nest  it  would  seem.  Well,  you  won't 
abide  here  long,  I  can  tell  you." 

"Maybe  you'll  abide  here  long  enough  to  reconsider 
that  statement,"  Biedenbach  said  quietly.  "And  in 
the  meanwhile  I  must  ask  you  to  come  inside  with  me." 


A  LOST  OLIGARCH  293 

" Inside?"  The  young  man  was  genuinely  aston- 
ished. "Have  you  a  catacomb  here?  I  have  heard 
of  such  things." 

"Come  on  and  see,"  Biedenbach  answered  with  his 
adorable  accent. 

"But  it  is  unlawful,"  was  the  protest. 

"Yes,  by  your  law,"  the  terrorist  replied  significantly. 
"But  by  our  law,  believe  me,  it  is  quite  lawful.  You 
must  accustom  yourself  to  the  fact  that  you  are  in 
another  world  than  the  one  of  oppression  and  brutality 
in  which  you  have  lived." 

"There  is  room  for  argument  there,"  Wickson  mut- 
tered. 

"Then  stay  with  us  and  discuss  it." 

The  young  fellow  laughed  and  followed  his  captor 
into  the  house.  He  was  led  into  the  inner  cave-room, 
and  one  of  the  young  comrades  left  to  guard  him,  while 
we  discussed  the  situation  in  the  kitchen. 

Biedenbach,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  held  that  Wickson 
must  die,  and  was  quite  relieved  when  we  outvoted 
him  and  his  horrible  proposition.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  could  not  dream  of  allowing  the  young  oligarch  to 
depart. 

"I'll  tell  you  what  to  do,"  Ernest  said.  "We'll 
keep  him  and  give  him  an  education." 

"I  bespeak  the  privilege,  then,  of  enlightening  him  in 
jurisprudence,"  Biedenbach  cried. 

And   so    a   decision   was   laughingly   reached.     We 


294  THE  IRON   HEEL 

would  keep  Philip  Wickson  a  prisoner  and  educate  him 
in  our  ethics  and  sociology.  But  in  the  meantime  there 
was  work  to  be  done.  All  trace  of  the  young  oligarch 
must  be  obliterated.  There  were  the  marks  he  had 
left  when  descending  the  crumbling  wall  of  the  hole. 
This  task  fell  to  Biedenbach,  and,  slung  on  a  rope  from 
above,  he  toiled  cunningly  for  the  rest  of  the  day  till 
no  sign  remained.  Back  up  the  canyon  from  the  lip 
of  the  hole  all  marks  were  likewise  removed.  Then, 
at  twilight,  came  John  Carlson,  who  demanded  Wick- 
son's  shoes. 

The  young  man  did  not  want  to  give  up  his  shoes, 
and  even  offered  to  fight  for  them,  till  he  felt  the  horse- 
shoer's  strength  in  Ernest's  hands.  Carlson  afterward 
reported  several  blisters  and  much  grievous  loss  of  skin 
due  to  the  smallness  of  the  shoes,  but  he  succeeded 
in  doing  gallant  work  with  them.  Back  from  the  lip 
of  the  hole,  where  ended  the  young  man's  obliterated 
trail,  Carlson  put  on  the  shoes  and  walked  away  to  the 
left.  He  walked  for  miles,  around  knolls,  over  ridges 
and  through  canyons,  and  finally  covered  the  trail  in 
the  running  water  of  a  creek-bed.  Here  he  removed 
the  shoes,  and,  still  hiding  trail  for  a  distance,  at  last 
put  on  his  own  shoes.  A  week  later  Wickson  got  back 
his  shoes. 

That  night  the  hounds  were  out,  and  there  was  little 
sleep  in  the  refuge.  Next  day,  time  and  again,  the 
baying  hounds  came  down  the  canyon,  plunged  off 


A  LOST  OLIGARCH  295 

to  the  left  on  the  trail  Carlson  had  made  for  them,  and 
were  lost  to  ear  in  the  farther  canyons  high  up  the 
mountain.  And  all  the  time  our  men  waited  in  the 
refuge,  weapons  in  hand  —  automatic  revolvers  and 
rifles,  to  say  nothing  of  half  a  dozen  infernal  machines 
of  Biedenbach's  manufacture.  A  more  surprised  party 
of  rescuers  could  not  be  imagined,  had  they  ventured 
down  into  our  hiding-place. 

I  have  now  given  the  true  disappearance  of  Philip 
Wickson,  one-time  oligarch,  and,  later,  comrade  in  the 
Revolution.  For  we  converted  him  in  the  end.  His 
mind  was  fresh  and  plastic,  and  by  nature  he  was  very 
ethical.  Several  months  later  we  rode  him,  on  one 
of  his  father's  horses,  over  Sonoma  Mountain  to  Peta- 
luma  Creek  and  embarked  him  in  a  small  fishing-launch. 
By  easy  stages  we  smuggled  him  along  our  underground 
railway  to  the  Carmel  refuge. 

There  he  remained  eight  months,  at  the  end  of  which 
time,  for  two  reasons,  he  was  loath  to  leave  us.  One 
reason  was  that  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  Anna  Royl- 
ston,  and  the  other  was  that  he  had  become  one  of  us. 
It  was  not  until  he  became  convinced  of  the  hopeless- 
ness of  his  love  affair  that  he  acceded  to  our  wishes  and 
went  back  to  his  father.  Ostensibly  an  oligarch  until 
his  death,  he  was  in  reality  one  of  the  most' valuable  of 
our  agents.  Often  and  often  has  the  Iron  Heel  been 
dumf ounded  by  the  miscarriage  of  its  plans  and  opera- 
tions against  us.     If  it  but  knew  the  number  of  its 


206  THE  IRON  HEEL 

own  members  who  are  our  agents,  it  would  understand. 
Young  Wickson  never  wavered  in  his  loyalty  to  the 
Cause.  In  truth,  his  very  death  was  incurred  by  his 
devotion  to  duty.  In  the  great  storm  of  1927,  while 
attending  a  meeting  of  our  leaders,  he  contracted  the 
pneumonia  of  which  he  died.1 

1  The  case  of  this  young  man  was  not  unusual.  Many  young  men 
of  the  Oligarchy,  impelled  by  sense  of  right  conduct,  or  their  imagina- 
tions captured  by  the  glory  of  the  Revolution,  ethically  or  roman- 
tically devoted  their  lives  to  it.  In  similar  way,  many  sons  of  the 
Russian  nobility  played  their  parts  in  the  earlier  and  protracted  revo- 
lution in  that  country. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  KOARING  ABYSMAL  BEAST 

During  the  long  period  of  our  stay  in  the  refuge, 
we  were  kept  closely  in  touch  with  what  was  happening 
in  the  world  without,  and  we  were  learning  thoroughly 
the  strength  of  the  Oligarchy  with  which  we  were  at 
war.  Out  of  the  flux  of  transition  the  new  institutions 
were  forming  more  definitely  and  taking  on  the  appear- 
ance and  attributes  of  permanence.  The  oligarchs 
had  succeeded  in  devising  a  governmental  machine,  as 
intricate  as  it  was  vast,  that  worked  —  and  this  despite 
all  our  efforts  to  clog  and  hamper. 

This  was  a  surprise  to  many  of  the  revolutionists. 
They  had  not  conceived  it  possible.  Nevertheless  the 
work  of  the  country  went  on.  The  men  toiled  in  the 
mines  and  fields  —  perforce  they  were  no  more  than 
slaves.  As  for  the  vital  industries,  everything  pros- 
pered. The  members  of  the  great  labor  castes  were 
contented  and  worked  on  merrily.  For  the  first  time 
in  their  lives  they  knew  industrial  peace.  No  more 
were  they  worried  by  slack  times,  strike  and  lockout, 
and  the  union  label.  They  lived  in  more  comfortable 
homes  and  in  delightful  cities  of  their  own  —  delight- 

297 


298  THE  IRON  HEEL 

ful  compared  with  the  slums  and  ghettos  in  which  they 
had  formerly  dwelt.  They  had  better  food  to  eat,  less 
hours  of  labor,  more  holidays,  and  a  greater  amount 
and  variety  of  interests  and  pleasures.  And  for  their 
less  fortunate  brothers  and  sisters,  the  unfavored  labor- 
ers, the  driven  people  of  the  abyss,  they  cared  nothing. 
An  age  of  selfishness  was  dawning  upon  mankind.  And 
yet  this  is  not  altogether  true.  The  labor  castes  were 
hone}^combed  by  our  agents  —  men  whose  eyes  saw, 
beyond  the  belly-need,  the  radiant  figure  of  liberty  and 
brotherhood. 

Another  great  institution  that  had  taken  form  and 
was  working  smoothly  was  the  Mercenaries.  This 
body  of  soldiers  had  been  evolved  out  of  the  old  regular 
army  and  was  now  a  million  strong,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  colonial  forces.  The  Mercenaries  constituted  a 
race  apart.  They  dwelt  in  cities  of  their  own  which 
were  practically  self-governed,  and  they  were  granted 
many  privileges.  By  them  a  large  portion  of  the  per- 
plexing surplus  was  consumed.  They  were  losing 
all  touch  and  sympathy  with  the  rest  of  the  people, 
and,  in  fact,  were  developing  their  own  class  morality 
and  consciousness.  And  yet  we  had  thousands  of  our 
agents  among  them.1 

1  The  Mercenaries,  in  the  last  days  of  the  Iron  Heel,  played  an 
important  r61c.  The}'  constituted  the  balance  of  power  in  the  strug- 
gles between  the  labor  castes  and  the  oligarchs,  and  now  to  one  side 
and  now  to  the  other,  threw  their  strength  according  to  the  play  of 
intrigue  and  conspiracy. 


THE  ROARING  ABYSMAL  BEAST  299 

The  oligarchs  themselves  were  going  through  a  re- 
markable and,  it  must  be  confessed,  unexpected  de- 
velopment. As  a  class,  they  disciplined  themselves. 
Every  member  had  his  work  to  do  in  the  world,  and 
this  work  he  was  compelled  to  do.  There  were  no 
more  idle-rich  young  men.  Their  strength  was  used 
to  give  united  strength  to  the  Oligarchy.  They  served 
as  leaders  of  troops  and  as  lieutenants  and  captains  of 
industry.  They  found  careers  in  applied  science,  and 
many  of  them  became  great  engineers.  They  went  into 
the  multitudinous  divisions  of  the  government,  took 
service  in  the  colonial  possessions,  and  by  tens  of 
thousands  went  into  the  various  secret  services. 
They  were,  I  may  say,  apprenticed  to  education,  to  art, 
to  the  church,  to  science,  to  literature ;  and  in  those 
fields  they  served  the  important  function  of  moulding 
the  thought-processes  of  the  nation  in  the  direction  of 
the  perpetuity  of  the  Oligarchy. 

They  were  taught,  and  later  they  in  turn  taught, 
that  what  they  were  doing  was  right.  They  assimilated 
the  aristocratic  idea  from  the  moment  they  began,  as 
children,  to  receive  impressions  of  the  world.  The 
aristocratic  idea  was  woven  into  the  making  of  them 
until  it  became  bone  of  them  and  flesh  of  them.  They 
looked  upon  themselves  as  wild-animal  trainers,  rulers 
of  beasts.  From  beneath  their  feet  rose  always  the 
subterranean  rumbles  of  revolt.  Violent  death  ever 
stalked  in  their  midst;    bomb  and  knife  and  bullet 


300  THE  IRON  HEEL 

were  looked  upon  as  so  many  fangs  of  the  roaring  abys- 
mal beast  they  must  dominate  if  humanity  were  to 
persist.  They  were  the  saviours  of  humanity,  and  they 
regarded  themselves  as  heroic  and  sacrificing  laborers 
for  the  highest  good. 

They,  as  a  class,  believed  that  they  alone  maintained 
civilization.  It  was  their  belief  that  if  ever  they 
weakened,  the  great  beast  would  ingulf  them  and 
everything  of  beauty  and  wonder  and  joy  and  good  in 
its  cavernous  and  slime-dripping  maw.  Without  them, 
anarchy  would  reign  and  humanity  would  drop  back- 
ward into  the  primitive  night  out  of  which  it  had 
so  painfully  emerged.  The  horrid  picture  of  anarchy 
was  held  always  before  their  child's  eyes  until  they,  in 
turn,  obsessed  by  this  cultivated  fear,  held  the  picture 
of  anarchy  before  the  eyes  of  the  children  that  followed 
them.  This  was  the  beast  to  be  stamped  upon,  and 
the  highest  duty  of  the  aristocrat  was  to  stamp  upon 
it.  In  short,  they  alone,  by  their  unremitting  toil 
and  sacrifice,  stood  between  weak  humanity  and  the 
all-devouring  beast;  and  they  believed  it,  firmly 
believed  it. 

I  cannot  lay  too  great  stress  upon  this  high  ethical 
righteousness  of  the  whole  oligarch  class.  This  has 
been  the  strength  of  the  Iron  Heel,  and  too  many  of  the 
comrades  have  been  slow  or  loath  to  realize  it.  Many 
of  them  have  ascribed  the  strength  of  the  Iron  Heel  to 
its  system  of  reward  and  punishment.     This  is  a  mis- 


THE  ROARING  ABYSMAL  BEAST  301 

take.  Heaven  and  hell  may  be  the  prime  factors  of 
zeal  in  the  religion  of  a  fanatic ;  but  for  the  great  major- 
ity of  the  religious,  heaven  and  hell  are  incidental  to 
right  and  wrong.  Love  of  the  right,  desire  for  the 
right,  unhappiness  with  anything  less  than  the  right  — 
in  short,  right  conduct,  is  the  prime  factor  of  religion. 
And  so  with  the  Oligarchy.  Prisons,  banishment  and 
degradation,  honors  and  palaces  and  wonder-cities,  are 
all  incidental.  The  great  driving  force  of  the  oligarchs 
is  the  belief  that  they  are  doing  right.  Never  mind  the 
exceptions,  and  never  mind  the  oppression  and  injustice 
in  which  the  Iron  Heel  was  conceived.  All  is  granted. 
The  point  is  that  the  strength  of  the  Oligarchy  to-day 
lies  in  its  satisfied  conception  of  its  own  righteousness.1 
For  that  matter,  the  strength  of  the  Revolution, 
during  these  frightful  twenty  years,  has  resided  in 
nothing  else  than  the  sense  of  righteousness.  In  no 
other  way  can  be  explained  our  sacrifices  and  martyr- 
doms. For  no  other  reason  did  Rudolph  Mendenhall 
flame  out  his  soul  for  the  Cause  and  sing  his  wild 
swan-song  that  last  night  of  life.     For  no  other  reason 

1  Out  of  the  ethical  incoherency  and  inconsistency  of  capitalism, 
the  oligarchs  emerged  with  a  new  ethics,  coherent  and  definite,  sharp 
and  severe  as  steel,  the  most  absurd  and  unscientific  and  at  the  same 
time  the  most  potent  ever  possessed  by  any  tyrant  class.  The  oli- 
garchs believed  their  ethics,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  biology  and 
evolution  gave  them  the  lie;  and,  because  of  their  faith,  for  three 
centuries  they  were  able  to  hold  back  the  mighty  tide  of  human 
progress  —  a  spectacle,  profound,  tremendous,  puzzling  to  the  meta- 
physical moralist,  and  one  that  to  the  materialist  is  the  eause  of 
many  doubts  and  reconsiderations. 


302  THE  IRON  HEEL 

did  Hurlbert  die  under  torture,  refusing  to  the  last  to 
betray  his  comrades.  For  no  other  reason  has  Anna 
Roylston  refused  blessed  motherhood.  For  no  other 
reason  has  John  Carlson  been  the  faithful  and  unre- 
warded custodian  of  the  Glen  Ellen  Refuge.  It  does 
not  matter,  young  or  old,  man  or  woman,  high  or  low, 
genius  or  clod,  go  where  one  will  among  the  comrades 
of  the  Revolution,  the  motor-force  will  be  found  to  be 
a  great  and  abiding  desire  for  the  right. 

But  I  have  run  away  from  my  narrative.  Ernest 
and  I  well  understood,  before  we  left  the  refuge,  how 
the  strength  of  the  Iron  Heel  was  developing.  The 
labor  castes,  the  Mercenaries,  and  the  great  hordes  of 
secret  agents  and  police  of  various  sorts  were  all 
pledged  to  the  Oligarchy.  In  the  main,  and  ignoring 
the  loss  of  liberty,  they  were  better  off  than  they  had 
been.  On  the  other  hand,  the  great  helpless  mass  of 
the  population,  the  people  of  the  abyss,  was  sinking 
into  a  brutish  apathy  of  content  with  misery.  When- 
ever strong  proletarians  asserted  their  strength  in  the 
midst  of  the  mass,  they  were  drawn  away  from  the 
mass  by  the  oligarchs  and  given  better  conditions  by 
being  made  members  of  the  labor  castes  or  of  the  Mer- 
cenaries. Thus  discontent  was  lulled  and  the  pro- 
letariat robbed  of  its  natural  leaders. 

The  condition  of  the  people  of  the  abyss  was  pitiable. 
Common  school  education,  so  far  as  they  were  con- 
cerned, had  ceased.     They  lived  like  beasts  in  great 


THE  ROARING  ABYSMAL  BEAST  303 

squalid  labor-ghettos,  festering  in  misery  and  degrada- 
tion. All  their  old  liberties  were  gone.  They  were 
labor-slaves.  Choice  of  work  was  denied  them.  Like- 
wise was  denied  them  the  right  to  move  from  place 
to  place,  or  the  right  to  bear  or  possess  arms.  They 
were  not  land-serfs  like  the  farmers.  They  were 
machine-serfs  and  labor-serfs.  When  unusual  needs 
arose  for  them,  such  as  the  building  of  the  great  high- 
ways and  air-lines,  of  canals,  tunnels,  subways,  and 
fortifications,  levies  were  made  on  the  labor-ghettos, 
and  tens  of  thousands  of  serfs,  willy-nilly,  were  trans- 
ported to  the  scene  of  operations.  Great  armies  of 
them  are  toiling  now  at  the  building  of  Ardis,  housed  in 
wretched  barracks  where  family  life  cannot  exist,  and 
where  decency  is  displaced  by  dull  bestiality.  In  all 
truth,  there  in  the  labor-ghettos  is  the  roaring  abysmal 
beast  the  oligarchs  fear  so  dreadfully  —  but  it  is  the 
beast  of  their  own  making.  In  it  they  will  not  let 
the  ape  and  tiger  die. 

And  just  now  the  word  has  gone  forth  that  new 
levies  are  being  imposed  for  the  building  of  Asgard,  the 
projected  wonder-city  that  will  far  exceed  Ardis  when 
the  latter  is  completed.1     We  of  the  Revolution  will 

1  Ardis  was  completed  in  1942  a.d.,  while  Asgard  was  not  com- 
pleted until  1984  a.d.  It  was  fifty-two  years  in  the  building,  during 
which  time  a  permanent  army  of  half  a  million  serfs  was  employed. 
At  times  these  numbers  swelled  to  over  a  million —  without  any  ac- 
count being  taken  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  labor  castes 
and  the  artists. 


304  THE  IRON  HEEL 

go  on  with  that  great  work,  but  it  will  not  be  done  by 
the  miserable  serfs.  The  walls  and  towers  and  shafts 
of  that  fair  city  will  arise  to  the  sound  of  singing,  and 
into  its  beauty  and  wonder  will  be  woven,  not  sighs 
and  groans,  but  music  and  laughter. 

Ernest  was  madly  impatient  to  be  out  in  the  world 
and  doing,  for  our  ill-fated  First  Revolt,  that  mis- 
carried in  the  Chicago  Commune,  was  ripening  fast. 
Yet  he  possessed  his  soul  with  patience,  and  during  the 
time  of  his  torment,  when  Hadly,  who  had  been  brought 
for  the  purpose  from  Illinois,  made  him  over  into  another 
man,1  he  revolved  great  plans  in  his  head  for  the  organi- 
zation of  the  learned  proletariat,  and  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  at  least  the  rudiments  of  education  amongst  the 
people  of  the  abyss  —  all  this,  of  course,  in  the  event 
of  the  First  Revolt  being  a  failure. 

It  was  not  until  January,  1917,  that  we  left  the  refuge. 

1  Among  the  Revolutionists  were  many  surgeons,  and  in  vivisec- 
tion they  attained  marvellous  proficiency.  In  Avis  Everhard's  words, 
they  could  literally  make  a  man  over.  To  them  the  elimination  of 
scars  and  disfigurements  was  a  trivial  detail.  They  changed  the 
features  with  such  microscopic  care  that  no  traces  were  left  of  their 
handiwork.  The  nose  was  a  favorite  organ  to  work  upon.  Skin- 
grafting  and  hair-transplanting  were  among  their  commonest  de- 
vices. The  changes  in  expression  they  accomplished  were  wizard- 
like. Eyes  and  eyebrows,  lips,  mouths,  and  ears,  were  radically 
altered.  By  cunning  operations  on  tongue,  throat,  larynx,  and  nasal 
cavities  a  man's  whole  enunciation  and  manner  of  speech  could  be 
changed.  Desperate  times  give  need  for  desperate  remedies,  and  the 
surgeons  of  the  Revolution  rose  to  the  need.  Among  other  things, 
they  could  increase  an  adult's  stature  by  as  much  as  four  or  five  inches 
and  decrease  it  by  one  or  two  inches.  What  they  did  is  to-day  a  lost 
art.     We  have  no  need  for  it. 


THE   ROARING  ABYSMAL  BEAST  305 

All  had  been  arranged.  We  took  our  place  at  once  as 
agents-provocateurs  in  the  scheme  of  the  Iron  Heel.  I 
was  supposed  to  be  Ernest's  sister.  By  oligarchs  and 
comrades  on  the  inside  who  were  high  in  authority, 
place  had  been  made  for  us,  we  were  in  possession  of  all 
necessary  documents,  and  our  pasts  were  accounted  for. 
With  help  on  the  inside,  this  was  not  difficult,  for  in 
that  shadow-world  of  secret  service  identity  was 
nebulous.  Like  ghosts  the  agents  came  and  went, 
obeying  commands,  fulfilling  duties,  following  clews, 
making  their  reports  often  to  officers  they  never  saw 
or  cooperating  with  other  agents  they  had  never  seen 
before  and  would  never  see  again. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

•      THE   CHICAGO   COMMUNE 

As  agents-provocateurs,  not  alone  were  we  able  to 
travel  a  great  deal,  but  our  very  work  threw  us^in 
contact  with  the  proletariat  and  with  our  comrades, 
the  revolutionists.  Thus  we  were  in  both  camps  at 
the  same  time,  ostensibly  serving  the  Iron  Heel  and 
secretly  working  with  all  our  might  for  the  Cause. 
There  were  many  of  us  in  the  various  secret  services 
of  the  Oligarchy,  and  despite  the  shakings-up  and 
reorganizations  the  secret  services  have  undergone, 
they  have  never  been  able  to  weed  all  of  us  out. 

Ernest  had  largely  planned  the  First  Revolt,  and  the 
date  set  had  been  somewhere  early  in  the  spring  of  1918. 
In  the  fall  of  1917  we  were  not  ready;  much  remained 
to  be  done,  and  when  the  Revolt  was  precipitated,  of 
course  it  was  doomed  to  failure.  The  plot  of  necessity 
was  frightfully  intricate,  and  anything  premature  was 
sure  to  destroy  it.  This  the  Iron  Heel  foresaw  and  laid 
its  schemes  accordingly. 

We  had  planned  to  strike  our  first  blow  at  the  nervous 
system  of  the  Oligarchy.     The  latter  had  remembered 

306 


THE  CHICAGO  COMMUNE  307 

the  general  strike,  and  had  guarded  against  the  defec- 
tion of  the  telegraphers  by  installing  wireless  stations, 
in  the  control  of  the  Mercenaries.  We,  in  turn,  had 
countered  this  move.  When  the  signal  was  given, 
from  every  refuge,  all  over  the  land,  and  from  the 
cities,  and  towns,  and  barracks,  devoted  comrades 
were  to  go  forth  and  blow  up  the  wireless  stations, 
Thus  at  the  first  shock  would  the  Iron  Heel  be  brought 
to  earth  and  lie  practically  dismembered. 

At  the  same  moment,  other  comrades  were  to  blow 
up  the  bridges  and  tunnels  and  disrupt  the  whole  net- 
work of  railroads.  Still  further,  other  groups  of  com- 
rades, at  the  signal,  were  to  seize  the  officers  of  the 
Mercenaries  and  the  police,  as  well  as  all  Oligarchs  of 
unusual  ability  or  who  held  executive  positions.  Thus 
would  the  leaders  of  the  enemy  be  removed  from  the 
field  of  the  local  battles  that  would  inevitably  be 
fought  all  over  the  land. 

Many  things  were  to  occur  simultaneously  when  the 
signal  went  forth.  The  Canadian  and  Mexican  pa- 
triots, who  were  far  stronger  than  the  Iron  Heel  dreamed, 
were  to  duplicate  our  tactics.  Then  there  were  com- 
rades (these  were  the  women,  for  the  men  would  be 
busy  elsewhere)  who  were  to  post  the  proclamations 
from  our  secret  presses.  Those  of  us  in  the  higher 
employ  of  the  Iron  Heel  were  to  proceed  immediately 
to  make  confusion  and  anarchy  in  all  our  departments. 
Inside  the  Mercenaries  were  thousands  of  our  comrades. 


308  THE  IRON  HEEL 

Their  work  was  to  blow  up  the  magazines  and  to  de- 
stroy the  delicate  mechanism  of  all  the  war  machinery. 
In  the  cities  of  the  Mercenaries  and  of  the  labor  castes 
similar  programmes  of  disruption  were  to  be  carried 
out. 

In  short,  a  sudden,  colossal,  stunning  blow  was  to 
be  struck.  Before  the  paralyzed  Oligarchy  could 
recover  itself,  its  end  would  have  come.  It  would 
liave  meant  terrible  times  and  great  loss  of  life,  but  no 
revolutionist  hesitates  at  such  things.  Why,  we  even 
depended  much,  in  our  plan,  on  the  unorganized  people 
of  the  abyss.  They  were  to  be  loosed  on  the  palaces 
and  cities  of  the  masters.  Never  mind  the  destruction 
of  life  and  property.  Let  the  abysmal  brute  roar  and 
the  police  and  Mercenaries  slay.  The  abysmal  brute 
would  roar  anyway,  and  the  police  and  Mercenaries 
would  slay  anyway.  It  would  merely  mean  that 
various  dangers  to  us  were  harmlessly  destroying  one 
another.  In  the  meantime  we  would  be  doing  our 
own  work,  largely  unhampered,  and  gaining  control 
of  all  the  machinery  of  society. 

Such  was  our  plan,  every  detail  of  which  had  to  be 
worked  out  in  secret,  and,  as  the  day  drew  near,  com- 
municated to  more  and  more  comrades.  This  was  the 
danger  point,  the  stretching  of  the  conspiracy.  But 
that  danger-point  was  never  reached.  Through  its 
spy-system  the  Iron  Heel  got  wind  of  the  Revolt  and 
^prepared  to  teach  us  another  of  its  bloody  lessons. 


THE  CHICAGO  COMMUNE  309 

Chicago  was  the  devoted  city  selected  for  the  instruc- 
tion, and  well  were  we  instructed. 

Chicago  1  was  the  ripest  of  all  —  Chicago  which  of 
old  time  was  the  city  of  blood  and  which  was  to  earn 
anew  its  name.  There  the  revolutionary  spirit  was 
strong.  Too  many  bitter  strikes  had  been  curbed  there 
in  the  days  of  capitalism  for  the  workers  to  forget  and 
forgive.  Even  the  labor  castes  of  the  city  were  alive 
with  revolt.  Too  many  heads  had  been  broken  in  the 
early  strikes.  Despite  their  changed  and  favorable 
conditions,  their  hatred  for  the  master  class  had  not 
died.  This  spirit  had  infected  the  Mercenaries,  of 
which  three  regiments  in  particular  were  ready  to  come 
over  to  us  en  masse. 

Chicago  had  always  been  the  storm-centre  of  the 
conflict  between  labor  and  capital,  a  city  of  street- 
battles  and  violent  death,  with  a  class-conscious 
capitalist  organization  and  a  class-conscious  work- 
man organization,  where,  in  the  old  days,  the  very 
school-teachers  were  formed  into  labor  unions  an 
affiliated  with  the  hod-carriers  and  brick-layers  in  the 


1  Chicago  was  the  industrial  inferno  of  the  nineteenth  century  a.d. 
A  curious  anecdote  has  come  down  to  us  of  John  Burns,  a  great  English 
labor  leader  and  one  time  member  of  the  British  Cabinet.  In  Chicago, 
while  on  a  visit  to  the  United  States,  he  was  asked  by  a  newspaper 
reporter  for  his  opinion  of  that  city.  "Chicago,"  he  answered,  "is 
a  pocket  edition  of  hell."  Some  time  later,  as  he  was  going  aboard 
his  steamer  to  sail  to  England,  he  was  approached  by  another  re- 
porter, who  wanted  to  know  if  he  had  changed  his  opinion  of  Chicago. 
"  Yes,  I  have,"  was  his  reply.  "  My  present  opinion  is  that  hell  is  a 
pocket  edition  of  Chicago." 


310  THE  IRON  HEEL 

American  Federation  of  Labor.  And  Chicago  became 
the  storm-centre  of  the  premature  First  Revolt. 

The  trouble  was  precipitated  by  the  Iron  Heel.  It 
was  cleverly  done.  The  whole  population,  including 
the  favored  labor  castes,  was  given  a  course  of  out- 
rageous treatment.  Promises  and  agreements  were 
broken,  and  most  drastic  punishments  visited  upon 
even  petty  offenders.  The  people  of  the  abyss  were 
tormented  out  of  their  apathy.  In  fact,  the  Iron  Heel 
was  preparing  to  make  the  abysmal  beast  roar.  And 
hand  in  hand  with  this,  in  all  precautionary  measures 
in  Chicago,  the  Iron  Heel  was  inconceivably  careless. 
Discipline  was  relaxed  among  the  Mercenaries  that 
remained,  while  many  regiments  had  been  withdrawn 
and  sent  to  various  parts  of  the  country. 

It  did  not  take  long  to  carry  out  this  programme  — 
only  several  weeks.  We  of  the  Revolution  caught 
vague  rumors  of  the  state  of  affairs,  but  had  nothing 
definite  enough  for  an  understanding.  In  fact,  we 
thought  it  was  a  spontaneous  spirit  of  revolt  that 
would  require  careful  curbing  on  our  part,  and  never 
dreamed  that  it  was  deliberately  manufactured  —  and 
it  had  been  manufactured  so  secretly,  from  the  very 
innermost  circle  of  the  Iron  Heel,  that  we  had  got  no 
inkling.  The  counter-plot  was  an  able  achievement, 
and  ably  carried  out. 

I  was  in  New  York  when  I  received  the  order  to 
proceed  immediately  to  Chicago.     The  man  who  gave 


THE  CHICAGO  COMMUNE  311 

me  the  order  was  one  of  the  oligarchs,  I  could  tell  that 
by  his  speech,  though  I  did  not  know  his  name  nor  see 
his  face.  His  instructions  were  too  clear  for  me  to 
make  a  mistake.  Plainly  I  read  between  the  lines  that 
our  plot  had  been  discovered,  that  we  had  been  counter- 
mined. The  explosion  was  ready  for  the  flash  of  pow- 
der, and  countless  agents  of  the  Iron  Heel,  including 
me,  either  on  the  ground  or  being  sent  there,  were  to 
supply  that  flash.  I  flatter  myself  that  I  maintained 
my  composure  under  the  keen  eye  of  the  oligarch,  but 
my  heart  was  beating  madly.  I  could  almost  have 
shrieked  and  flown  at  his  throat  with  my  naked  hands 
before  his  final,  cold-blooded  instructions  were  given. 

Once  out  of  his  presence,  I  calculated  the  time.  I 
had  just  the  moments  to  spare,  if  I  were  lucky,  to  get 
in  touch  with  some  local  leader  before  catching  my  train. 
Guarding  against  being  trailed,  I  made  a  rush  of  it  for 
the  Emergency  Hospital.  Luck  was  with  me,  and  I 
gained  access  at  once  to  comrade  Galvin,  the  surgeon- 
in-chief.  I  started  to  gasp  out  my  information,  but 
he  stopped  me. 

"I  already  know,"  he  said  quietly,  though  his  Irish 
eyes  were  flashing.  "I  knew  what  you  had  come  for. 
I  got  the  word  fifteen  minutes  ago,  and  I  have  already 
passed  it  along.  Everything  shall  be  done  here  to 
keep  the  comrades  quiet.  Chicago  is  to  be  sacrificed, 
but  it  shall  be  Chicago  alone." 

"Have  you  tried  to  get  word  to  Chicago?"  I  asked. 


312  THE  IRON  HEEL 

He  shook  his  head.  "No  telegraphic  communica- 
tion.    Chicago  is  shut  off.     It's  going  to  be  hell  there." 

He  paused  a  moment,  and  I  saw  his  white  hands 
clinch.     Then  he  burst  out : 

"By  God  !     I  wish  I  were  going  to  be  there  !" 

"There  is  yet  a  chance  to  stop  it,"  I  said,  "if  nothing 
happens  to  the  train  and  I  can  get  there  in  time.  Or 
if  some  of  the  other  secret-service  comrades  who  have 
learned  the  truth  can  get  there  in  time." 

"You  on  the  inside  were  caught  napping  this  time," 
he  said. 

I  nodded  my  head  humbly. 

"It  was  very  secret,"  I  answered.  "Only  the  inner 
chiefs  could  have  known  up  to  to-day.  We  haven't 
yet  penetrated  that  far,  so  we  couldn't  escape  being 
kept  in  the  dark.  If  only  Ernest  were  here.  Maybe 
he  is  in  Chicago  now,  and  all  is  well." 

Dr.  Galvin  shook  his  head.  "The  last  news  I  heard 
of  him  was  that  he  had  been  sent  to  Boston  or  New 
Haven.  This  secret  service  for  the  enemy  must  hamper 
him  a  lot,  but  it's  better  than  lying  in  a  refuge." 

I  started  to  go,  and  Galvin  wrung  my  hand. 

"Keep  a  stout  heart,"  were  his  parting  words. 
"What  if  the  First  Revolt  is  lost?  There  will  be  a 
second,  and  we  will  be  wiser  then.  Good-by  and 
good  luck.  I  don't  know  whether  I'll  ever  see  you 
again.  It's  going  to  be  hell  there,  but  I'd  give  ten 
years  of  my  life  for  your  chance  to  be  in  it." 


THE  CHICAGO  COMMUNE  313 

The  Twentieth  Century  *  left  New  York  at  six  in  the 
evening,  and  was  supposed  to  arrive  at  Chicago  at 
seven  next  morning.  But  it  lost  time  that  night. 
We  were  running  behind  another  train.  Among  the 
travellers  in  my  Pullman  was  comrade  Hartman,  like 
myself  in  the  secret  service  of  the  Iron  Heel.  He  it 
was  who  told  me  of  the  train  that  immediately  preceded 
us.  It  was  an  exact  duplicate  of  our  train,  though  it 
contained  no  passengers.  The  idea  was  that  the  empty 
train  should  receive  the  disaster  were  an  attempt  made 
to  blow  up  the  Twentieth  Century.  For  that  matter 
there  were  very  few  people  on  the  train  —  only  a  baker's 
dozen  in  our  car. 

"There  must  be  some  big  men  on  board,"  Hartman 
concluded.     "I  noticed  a  private  car  on  the  rear." 

Night  had  fallen  when  we  made  our  first  change  of 
engine,  and  I  walked  down  the  platform  for  a  breath 
of  fresh  air  and  to  see  what  I  could  see.  Through  the 
windows  of  the  private  car  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  three 
men  whom  I  recognized.  Hartman  was  right.  One 
of  the  men  was  General  Altendorff ;  and  the  other  two 
were  Mason  and  Vanderbold,  the  brains  of  the  inner 
circle  of  the  Oligarchy's  secret  service. 

It  was  a  quiet  moonlight  night,  but  I  tossed  rest-' 
lessly  and  could  not  sleep.  At  five  in  the  morning  I 
dressed  and  abandoned  my  bed. 

1  This  was  reputed  to  be  the  fastest  train  in  the  world  then.  It 
was  quite  a  famous  train. 


314  THE  IRON  HEEL 

I  asked  the  maid  in  the  dressing-room  how  late  the 
train  was,  and  she  told  me  two  hours.  She  was  a 
mulatto  woman,  and  I  noticed  that  her  face  was  hag- 
gard, with  great  circles  under  the  eyes,  while  the  eyes 
themselves  were  wide  with  some  haunting  fear. 

"What  is  the  matter?"   I  asked. 

"Nothing,  miss;  I  didn't  sleep  well,  I  guess,"  was 
her  reply. 

I  looked  at  her  closely,  and  tried  her  with  one  of  our 
signals.     She  responded,  and  I  made  sure  of  her. 

"Something  terrible  is  going  to  happen  in  Chicago," 
she  said.  "There's  that  fake1  train  in  front  of  us. 
That  and  the  troop-trains  have  made  us  late." 

"Troop-trains?"  I  queried. 

She  nodded  her  head.  "The  line  is  thick  with  them. 
We've  been  passing  them  all  night.  And  they're  all 
heading  for  Chicago.  And  bringing  them  over  the 
air-line  —  that  means  business. 

"I've  a  lover  in  Chicago,"  she  added  apologetically. 
"He's  one  of  us,  and  he's  in  the  Mercenaries,  and  I'm 
afraid  for  him." 

Poor  girl.  Her  lover  was  in  one  of  the  three  disloyal 
regiments. 

Hartman  and  I  had  breakfast  together  in  the  dining 
car,  and  I  forced  myself  to  eat.  The  sky  had  clouded, 
and  the  train  rushed  on  like  a  sullen  thunderbolt  through 
the  gray  pall  of  advancing  day.     The  very  negroes  that 

1  False. 


THE  CHICAGO  COMMUNE  315 

waited  on  us  knew  that  something  terrible  was  impend- 
ing. Oppression  sat  heavily  upon  them ;  the  lightness 
of  their  natures  had  ebbed  out  of  them;  they  were 
slack  and  absent-minded  in  their  service,  and  they 
whispered  gloomily  to  one  another  in  the  far  end  of 
the  car  next  to  the  kitchen.  Hartman  was  hopeless 
over  the  situation. 

"What  can  we  do?"  he  demanded  for  the  twentieth 
time,  with  a  helpless  shrug  oi  the  shoulders. 

He  pointed  out  of  the  window.  "See,  all  is  ready. 
You  can  depend  upon  it  that  they're  holding  them  like 
this,  thirty  or  forty  miles  outside  the  city,  on  every 
road." 

He  had  reference  to  troop-trains  on  the  side-track. 
The  soldiers  were  cooking  their  breakfasts  over  fires 
built  on  the  ground  beside  the  track,  and  they  looked 
up  curiously  at  us  as  we  thundered  past  without 
slackening  our  terrific  speed. 

All  was  quiet  as  we  entered  Chicago.  It  was  evident 
nothing  had  happened  yet.  In  the  suburbs  the  morn- 
ing papers  came  on  board  the  train.  There  was  noth- 
ing in  them,  and  yet  there  was  much  in  them  for  those 
skilled  in  reading  between  the  lines  that  it  was  intended 
the  ordinary  reader  should  read  into  the  text.  The 
fine  hand  of  the  Iron  Heel  was  apparent  in  every  col- 
umn. Glimmerings  of  weakness  in  the  armor  of  the 
Oligarchy  were  given.  Of  course,  there  was  nothing 
definite.     It  was  intended  that  the  reader  should  feel 


316  THE  IRON  HEEL 

his  way  to  these  glimmerings.  It  was  cleverly  done. 
As  fiction,  those  morning  papers  of  October  27th  were 
masterpieces. 

The  local  news  was  missing.  This  in  itself  was  z 
master-stroke.  It  shrouded  Chicago  in  myster}^  and 
it  suggested  to  the  average  Chicago  reader  that  the 
Oligarchy  did  not  dare  give  the  local  news.  Hints 
that  were  untrue,  of  course,  were  given  of  insubordina- 
tion all  over  the  land,  crudely  disguised  with  com- 
placent references  to  punitive  measures  to  be  taken. 
There  were  reports  of  numerous  wireless  stations  that 
had  been  blown  up,  with  heavy  rewards  offered  for 
the  detection  of  the  perpetrators.  Of  course  no  wire- 
less stations  had  been  blown  up.  Many  similar  out- 
rages, that  dovetailed  with  the  plot  of  the  revolution- 
ists, were  given.  The  impression  to  be  made  on  the 
minds  of  the  Chicago  comrades  was  that  the  general 
Revolt  was  beginning,  albeit  with  a  confusing  mis- 
carriage in  many  details.  It  was  impossible  for  one 
uninformed  to  escape  the  vague  yet  certain  feeling 
that  all  the  land  was  ripe  for  the  revolt  that  had  already 
begun  to  break  out. 

It  was  reported  that  the  defection  of  the  Mercenaries 
in  California  had  become  so  serious  that  half  a  dozen 
regiments  had  been  disbanded  and  broken,  and  that 
their  members  with  their  families  had  been  driven  from 
their  own  city  and  on  into  the  labor-ghettos.  And  the 
California  Mercenaries  were  in  reality  the  most  faithful 


THE  CHICAGO  COMMUNE  317 

of  all  to  their  salt !  But  how  was  Chicago,  shut  off 
from  the  rest  of  the  world,  to  know  ?  Then  there  was  a 
ragged  telegram  describing  an  outbreak  of  the  populace 
in  New  York  City,  in  which  the  labor  castes  were  join- 
ing, concluding  with  the  statement  (intended  to  be 
accepted  as  a  bluff1)  that  the  troops  had  the  situation  in 
hand. 

And  as  the  oligarchs  had  done  with  the  morning 
papers,  so  had  they  done  in  a  thousand  other  ways. 
These  we  learned  afterward,  as,  for  example,  the  secret 
messages  of  the  oligarchs,  sent  with  the  express  purpose 
of  leaking  to  the  ears  of  the  revolutionists,  that  had 
come  over  the  wires,  now  and  again,  during  the  first 
part  of  the  night. 

"I  guess  the  Iron  Heel  won't  need  our  services/' 
Hartman  remarked,  putting  down  the  paper  he  had 
been  reading,  when  the  train  pulled  into  the  central 
depot.  "They  wasted  their  time  sending  us  here. 
Their  plans  have  evidently  prospered  better  than 
they  expected.  Hell  will  break  loose  any  second 
now." 

lie  turned  and  looked  down  the  train  as  we  alighted. 

"I  thought  so,"  he  muttered.  "They  dropped  that 
private  car  when  the  papers  came  aboard." 

Hartman  was  hopelessly  depressed.  I  tried  to 
cheer  him  up,  but  he  ignored  my  effort  and  suddenly 
began  talking  very  hurriedly,  in  a  low  voice,  as  we 

1  A  lie. 


318  THE  IRON  HEEL 

passed  through  the  station.  At  first  I  could  not  under- 
stand. 

"I  have  not  been  sure,"  he  was  saying,  "and  I  have 
told  no  one.  I  have  been  working  on  it  for  weeks, 
and  I  cannot  make  sure.  Watch  out  for  Knowlton.  I 
suspect  him.  He  knows  the  secrets  of  a  score  of  our 
refuges.  He  carries  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  us  in  his 
hands,  and  I  think  he  is  a  traitor.  It's  more  a  feeling 
on  my  part  than  anything  else.  But  I  thought  I 
marked  a  change  in  him  a  short  while  back.  There  is 
the  danger  that  he  has  sold  us  out,  or  is  going  to  sell  us 
out.  I  am  almost  sure  of  it.  I  wouldn't  whisper  my 
suspicions  to  a  soul,  but,  somehow,  I  don't  think  I'll 
leave  Chicago  alive.  Keep  your  eye  on  Knowlton. 
Trap  him.  Find  out.  I  don't  know  anything  more. 
It  is  only  an  intuition,  and  so  far  I  have  failed  to  find 
the  slightest  clew."  We  were  just  stepping  out  upon 
the  sidewalk.  "Remember,"  Hartman  concluded  ear- 
nestly.    "Keep  your  eyes  upon  Knowlton." 

And  Hartman  was  right.  Before  a  month  went  by 
Knowlton  paid  for  his  treason  with  his  life.  He  was 
formally  executed  by  the  comrades  in  Milwaukee. 

All  was  quiet  on  the  streets  —  too  quiet.  Chicago 
lay  dead.  There  was  no  roar  and  rumble  of  traffic. 
There  were  not  even  cabs  on  the  streets.  The  surface 
cars  and  the  elevated  were  not  running.  Only  occa- 
sionally, on  the  sidewalks,  were  there  stray  pedestrians, 
and  these  pedestrians  did  not  loiter.     They  went  their 


THE  CHICAGO  COMMUNE  319 

ways  with  great  haste  and  definiteness,  withal  there 
was  a  curious  indecision  in  their  movements,  as  though 
they  expected  the  buildings  to  topple  over  on  them  or 
the  sidewalks  to  sink  under  their  feet  or  fly  up  in  the 
air.  A  few  gamins,  however,  were  around,  in  their 
eyes  a  suppressed  eagerness  in  anticipation  of  wonder- 
ful and  exciting  things  to  happen. 

From  somewhere,  far  to  the  south,  the  dull  sound  of 
an  explosion  came  to  our  ears.  That  was  all.  Then 
quiet  again,  though  the  gamins  had  startled  and  lis- 
tened, like  young  deer,  at  the  sound.  The  doorways 
to  all  the  buildings  were  closed ;  the  shutters  to  the 
shops  were  up.  But  there  were  many  police  and 
watchmen  in  evidence,  and  now  and  again  automobile 
patrols  of  the  Mercenaries  slipped  swiftly  past. 

Hartman  and  I  agreed  that  it  was  useless  to  report 
ourselves  to  the  local  chiefs  of  the  secret  service.     Our 
failure  so  to  report  would  be  excused,  we  knew,  in  the 
light  of  subsequent  events.     So  we  headed  for  the  great 
labor-ghetto  on  the  South  Side  in  the  hope  of  getting 
in  contact  with  some  of  the  comrades.     Too  late  !     We 
knew  it.     But  we  could  not  stand  still  and  do  nothing 
in  those  ghastly,  silent  streets.     Where  was  Ernest? 
I  was  wondering.     What  was  happening  in  the  cities 
of  the  labor  castes  and  Mercenaries  ?     In  the  fortresses  ? 
As  if  in  answer,  a  great  screaming  roar  went  up,  dim 
with  distance,  punctuated  with  detonation  after  de- 
tonation. 


320  THE  IRON  HEEL 

"It's  the  fortresses,"  Hartman  said.  "God  pity  those 
three  regiments !" 

At  a  crossing  we  noticed,  in  the  direction  of  the 
stockyards,  a  gigantic  pillar  of  smoke.  At  the  next 
crossing  several  similar  smoke  pillars  were  rising  sky- 
ward in  the  direction  of  the  West  Side.  Over  the  city 
of  the  Mercenaries  we  saw  a  great  captive  war-balloon 
that  burst  even  as  we  looked  at  it,  and  fell  in  flaming 
wreckage  toward  the  earth.  There  was  no  clew  to  that 
tragedy  of  the  air.  We  could  not  determine  whether 
the  balloon  had  been  manned  by  comrades  or  enemies. 
A  vague  sound  came  to  our  ears,  like  the  bubbling  of  a 
gigantic  caldron  a  long  way  off,  and  Hartman  said  it 
was  machine-guns  and  automatic  rifles. 

And  still  we  walked  in  immediate  quietude.  Noth- 
ing was  happening  where  we  were.  The  police  and  the 
automobile  patrols  went  by,  and  once  half  a  dozen  fire- 
engines,  returning  evidently  from  some  conflagration. 
A  question  was  called  to  the  firemen  by  an  officer  in  an 
automobile,  and  we  heard  one  shout  in  reply:  "No 
water!     They've  blown  up  the  mains!" 

"We've  smashed  the  water  supply,"  Hartman  cried 
excitedly  to  me.  "If  we  can  do  all  this  in  a  premature, 
isolated,  abortive  attempt,  what  can't  we  do  in  a  con- 
certed, ripened  effort  all  over  the  land?" 

The  automobile  containing  the  officer  who  had  asked 
the  question  darted  on.  Suddenly  there  was  a  deafen- 
ing roar.     The  machine,  with  its  human  freight,  lifted 


THE  CHICAGO  COMMUNE  321 

in  an  upburst  of  smoke,  and  sank  down  a  mass  of 
wreckage  and  death. 

Hartman  was  jubilant.  "Well  done!  well  done!" 
he  was  repeating,  over  and  over,  in  a  whisper.  "The 
proletariat  gets  its  lesson  to-day,  but  it  gives  one,  too." 

Police  were  running  for  the  spot.  Also,  another 
patrol  machine  had  halted.  As  for  myself,  I  was  in  a 
daze.  The  suddenness  of  it  was  stunning.  How  had 
it  happened?  I  knew  not  how,  and  yet  I  had  been 
looking  directly  at  it.  So  dazed  was  I  for  the  moment 
that  I  was  scarcely  aware  of  the  fact  that  we  were  being 
held  up  by  the  police.  I  abruptly  saw  that  a  policeman 
was  in  the  act  of  shooting  Hartman.  But  Hartman 
was  cool  and  was  giving  the  proper  passwords.  I  saw 
the  levelled  revolver  hesitate,  then  sink  down,  and  heard 
the  disgusted  grunt  of  the  policeman.  He  was  very 
angry,  and  was  cursing  the  whole  secret  service.  It  was 
always  in  the  way,  he  was  averring,  while  Hartman  was 
talking  back  to  him  and  with  fitting  secret-service  pride 
explaining  to  him  the  clumsiness  of  the  police. 

The  next  moment  I  knew  how  it  had  happened. 
There  was  quite  a  group  about  the  wreck,  and  two  men 
were  just  lifting  up  the  wounded  officer  to  carry  him 
to  the  other  machine.  A  panic  seized  all  of  them,  and 
they  scattered  in  every  direction,  running  in  blind 
terror,  the  wounded  officer,  roughly  dropped,  being 
left  behind.  The  cursing  policeman  alongside  of  me 
also  ran,  and  Hartman  and  I  ran,  too,  we  knew  not 


322  THE  IRON  HEEL 

why,  obsessed  with  the  same  blind  terror  to  get  away 
from  that  particular  spot. 

Nothing  really  happened  then,  but  everything  was 
explained.  The  flying  men  were  sheepishly  coming 
back,  but  all  the  while  their  eyes  were  raised  appre- 
hensively to  the  many-windowed,  lofty  buildings  that 
towered  like  the  sheer  walls  of  a  canyon  on  each  side  of 
the  street.  From  one  of  those  countless  windows  the 
bomb  had  been  thrown,  but  which  window?  There 
had  been  no  second  bomb,  only  a  fear  of  one. 

Thereafter  we  looked  with  speculative  comprehension 
at  the  windows.  Any  of  them  contained  possible  death. 
Each  building  was  a  possible  ambuscade.  This  was 
warfare  in  that  modern  jungle,  a  great  city.  Every 
street  was  a  canyon,  every  building  a  mountain.  We 
had  not  changed  much  from  primitive  man,  despite 
the  war  automobiles  that  were  sliding  by. 

Turning  a  corner,  we  came  upon  a  woman.  She  was 
lying  on  the  pavement,  in  a  pool  of  blood.  Hartman 
bent  over  and  examined  her.  As  for  myself,  I  turned 
deathly  sick.  I  was  to  see  many  dead  that  day,  but 
the  total  carnage  was  not  to  affect  me  as  did  this  first 
forlorn  body  lying  there  at  my  feet  abandoned  on  the 
pavement.  "Shot  in  the  breast,"  was  Hartman's 
report.  Clasped  in  the  hollow  of  her  arm,  as  a  child 
might  be  clasped,  was  a  bundle  of  printed  matter. 
Even  in  death  she  seemed  loath  to  part  with  that  which 
had  caused  her  death ;    for  when  Hartman  had   sue- 


THE  CHICAGO  COMMUNE  323 

ceedeJ  in  withdrawing  the  bundle,  we  found  that  it 
consisted  of  large  printed  sheets,  the  proclamations  of 
the  revolutionists. 

"A  comrade,"  I  said. 

But  Hartman  only  cursed  the  Iron  Heel,  and  we 
passed  on.  Often  we  were  halted  by  the  police  and 
patrols,  but  our  passwords  enabled  us  to  proceed.  No 
more( bombs  fell  from  the  windows,  the  last  pedestrians 
seemed  to  have  vanished  from  the  streets,  and  our 
immediate  quietude  grew  more  profound ;  though  the 
gigantic  caldron  continued  to  bubble  in  the  distance, 
dull  roars  of  explosions  came  to  us  from  all  directions, 
and  the  smoke-pillars  were  towering  more  ominously 
in  the  heavens. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE   PEOPLE   OF  THE   ABYSS 

Suddenly  a  change  came  over  the  face  of  things. 
A  tingle  of  excitement  ran  along  the  air.  Automobiles 
fled  past,  two,  three,  a  dozen,  and  from  them  warnings 
were  shouted  to  us.  One  of  the  machines  swerved 
wildly  at  high  speed  half  a  block  down,  and  the  next 
moment,  already  left  well  behind  it,  the  pavement 
was  torn  into  a  great  hole  by  a  bursting  bomb.  We 
saw  the  police  disappearing  down  the  cross-streets  on 
the  run,  and  knew  that  something  terrible  was  coming. 
We  could  hear  the  rising  roar  of  it. 

"Our  brave  comrades  are  coming,"  Hartman  said. 

We  could  see  the  front  of  their  column  filling  the 
street  from  gutter  to  gutter,  as  the  last  war-automobile 
fled  past.  The  machine  stopped  for  a  moment  just 
abreast  of  us.  A  soldier  leaped  from  it,  carrying  some- 
thing carefully  in  his  hands.  This,  with  the  same 
care,  he  deposited  in  the  gutter.  Then  he  leaped  back 
to  his  seat  and  the  machine  dashed  on,  took  the  turn 
at  the  corner,  and  was  gone  from  sight.  Hartman  ran 
to  the  gutter  and  stooped  over  the  object. 

"Keep  back,"  he  warned  me. 

324 


THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS  325 

I  could  see  he  was  working  rapidly  with  his  hands. 
When  he  returned  to  me  the  sweat  was  heavy  on  his 
forehead. 

"I  disconnected  it,"  he  said,  "and  just  in  the  nick 
of  time.  The  soldier  was  clumsy.  He  intended  it  for 
our  comrades,  but  he  didn't  give  it  enough  time.  It 
would  have  exploded  prematurely.  Now  it  won't 
explode  at  all." 

Everything  was  happening  rapidly  now.  Across 
the  street  and  half  a  block  down,  high  up  in  a  building, 
I  could  see  heads  peering  out.  ,  I  had  just  pointed  .them 
out  to  Hartman,  when  a  sheet  of  flame  and  smoke  ran 
along  that  portion  of  the  face  of  the  building  where  the 
heads  had  appeared,  and  the  air  was  shaken  by  the 
explosion.  In  places  the  stone  facing  of  the  building 
was  torn  away,  exposing  the  iron  construction  beneath. 
The  next  moment  similar  sheets  of  flame  and  smoke 
smote  the  front  of  the  building  across  the  street  oppo- 
site it.  Between  the  explosions  we  could  hear  the 
rattle  of  the  automatic  pistols  and  rifles.  For  several 
minutes  this  mid-air  battle  continued,  then  died  out. 
It  was  patent  that  our  comrades  were  in  one  building, 
that  Mercenaries  were  in  the  other,  and  that  they  were 
fighting  across  the  street.  But  we  could  not  tell  which 
was  which  —  which  building  contained  our  comrades 
and  which  the  Mercenaries. 

By  this  time  the  column  on  the  street  was  almost  on 
us.     As  the  front  of  it  passed  under  the  warring  build- 


326  THE  IRON  HEEL 

ings,  both  went  into  action  again  —  one  building 
dropping  bombs  into  the  street,  being  attacked  from 
across  the  street,  and  in  return  replying  to  that  attack. 
Thus  we  learned  which  building  was  held  by  our  com- 
rades, and  they  did  good  work,  saving  those  in  the 
street  from  the  bombs  of  the  enemy. 

Hartman  gripped  my  arm  and  dragged  me  into  a 
wide  entrance. 

"They're  not  our  comrades,"  he  shouted  in  my  ear. 

The  inner  doors  to  the  entrance  were  locked  and 
bolted.  We  could  not  escape.  The  next  moment  the 
front  of  the  column  went  by.  It  was  not  a  column, 
but  a  mob,  an  awful  river  that  filled  the  street,  the 
people  of  the  abyss,  mad  with  drink  and  wrong,  up  at 
last  and  roaring  for  the  blood  of  their  masters.  I  had 
seen  the  people  of  the  abyss  before,  gone  through  its 
ghettos,  and  thought  I  knew  it ;  but  I  found  that  I 
was  now  looking  on  it  for  the  first  time.  Dumb  apathy 
had  vanished.  It  was  now  dynamic  —  a  fascinating 
spectacle  of  dread.  It  surged  past  my  vision  in  con- 
crete waves  of  wrath,  snarling  and  growling,  carnivo- 
rous, drunk  with  whiskey  from  pillaged  warehouses, 
drunk  with  hatred,  drunk  with  lust  for  blood  —  men, 
women,  and  children,  in  rags  and  tatters,  dim  ferocious 
intelligences  with  all  the  godlike  blotted  from  their 
features  and  all  the  fiendlike  stamped  in,  apes  and 
tigers,  anaemic  consumptives  and  great  hairy  beasts 
of  burden,  wan  faces  from  which  vampire  society  had 


THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS  327 

sucked  the  juice  of  life,  bloated  forms  swollen  with 
physical  grossness  and  corruption,  withered  hags  and 
death's-heads  bearded  like  patriarchs,  festering  youth 
and  festering  age,  faces  of  fiends,  crooked,  twisted, 
misshapen  monsters  blasted  with  the  ravages  of  disease 
and  all  the  horrors  of  chronic  innutrition  —  the  refuse 
and  the  scum  of  life,  a  raging,  screaming,  screeching, 
demoniacal  horde. 

And  why  not  ?  The  people  of  the  abyss  had  nothing 
to  lose  but  the  misery  and  pain  of  living.  And  to  gain  ? 
—  nothing,  save  one  final,  awful  glut  of  vengeance. 
And  as  I  looked  the  thought  came  to  me  that  in  that 
rushing  stream  of  human  lava  were  men,  comrades  and 
heroes,  whose  mission  had  been  to  rouse  the  abysmal 
beast  and  to  keep  the  enemy  occupied  in  coping  with  it. 

And  now  a  strange  thing  happened  to  me.  A  trans- 
formation came  over  me.  The  fear  of  death,  for  myself 
and  for  others,  left  me.  I  was  strangely  exalted,  an- 
other being  in  another  life.  Nothing  mattered.  The 
Cause  for  this  one  time  was  lost,  but  the  Cause  would 
be  here  to-morrow,  the  same  Cause,  ever  fresh  and  ever 
burning.  And  thereafter,  in  the  orgy  of  horror  that 
raged  through  the  succeeding  hours,  I  was  able  to  take 
a  calm  interest.  Death  meant  nothing,  life  meant 
nothing.  I  was  an  interested  spectator  of  events,  and, 
sometimes  swept  on  by  the  rush,  was  myself  a  curious 
participant.  For  my  mind  had  leaped  to  a  star-cool 
altitude  and  grasped  a  passionless  transvaluation  of 


328  THE  IRON  HEEL 

values.  Had  it  not  done  this,  I  know  that  I  should 
have  died.  ' 

Half  a  mile  of  the  mob  had  swept  by  when  we  were 
discovered.  A  woman  in  fantastic  rags,  with  cheeks 
cavernously  hollow  and  with  narrow  black  eyes  like 
burning  gimlets,  caught  a  glimpse  of  Hartman  and 
me.  She  let  out  a  shrill  shriek  and  bore  in  upon  us. 
A  section  of  the  mob  tore  itself  loose  and  surged  in 
after  her.  I  can  see  her  now,  as  I  write  these  lines,  a 
leap  in  advance,  her  gray  hair  flying  in  thin  tangled 
strings,  the  blood  dripping  down  her  forehead  from 
some  wound  in  the  scalp,  in  her  right  hand  a  hatchet, 
her  left  hand,  lean  and  wrinkled,  a  yellow  talon,  gripping 
the  air  convulsively.  Hartman  sprang  in  front  of  me. 
This  was  no  time  for  explanations.  We  were  well 
dressed,  and  that  was  enough.  His  fist  shot  out,  strik- 
ing the  woman  between  her  burning  eyes.  The  impact 
of  the  blow  drove  her  backward,  but  she  struck  the 
wall  of  her  on-coming  fellows  and  bounced  forward 
again,  dazed  and  helpless,  the  brandished  hatchet 
falling  feebly  on  Hartman's  shoulder. 

The  next  moment  I  knew  not  what  was  happening. 
I  was  overborne  by  the  crowd.  The  confined  space  was 
filled  with  shrieks  and  yells  and  curses.  Blows  were 
falling  on  me.  Hands  were  ripping  and  tearing  at  my 
flesh  and  garments.  I  felt  that  I  was  being  torn  to 
pieces.  I  was  being  borne  down,  suffocated.  Some 
strong  hand  gripped  my  shoulder  in  the  thick  of  the 


THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS  32£ 

press  and  was  dragging  fiercely  at  me.  Between  pain 
and  pressure  I  fainted.  Hartman  never  came  out  of 
that  entrance.  He  had  shielded  me  and  received  the 
first  brunt  of  the  attack.  This  had  saved  me,  for  the 
jam  had  quickly  become  too  dense  for  anything  more 
than  the  mad  gripping  and  tearing  of  hands. 

I  came  to  in  the  midst  of  wild  movement.  All  about 
me  was  the  same  movement.  I  had  been  caught  up  in 
a  monstrous  flood  that  was  sweeping  me  I  knew  not 
whither.  Fresh  air  was  on  my  cheek  and  biting  sweetly 
in  my  lungs.  Faint  and  dizzy,  I  was  vaguely  aware  of 
a  strong  arm  around  my  body  under  the  arms,  and  half- 
lifting  me  and  dragging  me  along.  Feebly  my  own 
limb's  were  helping  me.  In  front  of  me  I  could  see  the  ' 
moving  back  of  a  man's  coat.  It  had  been  slit  from 
top  to  bo+'om  along  the  centre  seam,  and  it  pulsed 
rhythmically,  the  slit  opening  and  closing  regularly 
with  every  leap  of  the  wearer.  This  phenomenon 
fascinated  me  for  a  time,  while  my  senses  were  coming 
back  to  me.  Next  I  became  aware  of  stinging  cheeks 
and  nose,  and  could  feel  blood  dripping  on  my  face.  My 
hat  was  gone.  My  hair  was  down  and  flying,  and  from 
the  stinging  of  the  scalp  I  managed  to  recollect  a  hand 
in  the  press  of  the  entrance  that  had  torn  at  my  hair. 
My  chest  and  arms  were  bruised  and  aching  in  a  score 
of  places. 

My  brain  grew  clearer,  and  I  turned  as  I  ran  and 
looked  at  the  man  who  was  holding  me  up.     He  it  was 


% 
330  THE  IRON  HEEL 

who  had  dragged  me  out  and  saved  me.  He  noticed 
my  movement. 

"It's  all  right !"  he  shouted  hoarsely.  "I  knew  you 
on  the  instant." 

I  failed  to  recognize  him,  but  before  I  could  speak 
I  trod  upon  something  that  was  alive  and  that  squirmed 
under  my  foot.  I  was  swept  on  by  those  behind  and 
could  not  look  down  and  see,  and  yet  I  knew  that  it  was 
a  woman  who  had  fallen  and  who  was  being  trampled 
into  the  pavement  by  thousands  of  successive  feet. 

"It's  all  right,"  he  repeated.      "I'm  Garthwaite." 

He  was  bearded  and  gaunt  and  dirty,  but  I  succeeded 
in  remembering  him  as  the  stalwart  youth  that  had 
spent  several  months  in  our  Glen  Ellen  refuge  three 
years  before.  He  passed  me  the  signals  of  the  Iron 
Heel's  secret  service,  in  token  that  he,  to?,  was  in  its 
employ. 

"I'll  get  you  out  of  this  as  soon  as  I  can  get  a  chance," 
he  assured  me.  "But  watch  your  footing.  On  your 
life  don't  stumble  and  go  down." 

All  things  happened  abruptly  on  that  day,  and  with 
an  abruptness  that  was  sickening  the  mob  checked 
itself.  I  came  in  violent  collision  with  a  large  woman 
in  front  of  me  (the  man  with  the  split  coat  had  van- 
ished), while  those  behind  collided  against  me.  A 
devilish  pandemonium  reigned,  —  shrieks,  curses,  and 
cries  of  death,  while  above  all  rose  the  churning  rattle 
of  machine-guns  and  the  put-a-put,  put-a-put  of  rifles. 


THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS  331 

At  first  I  could  make  out  nothing.  People  were  falling 
about  me  right  and  left.  The  woman  in  front  doubled 
up  and  went  down,  her  hands  on  her  abdomen  in  a 
frenzied  clutch.  A  man  was  quivering  against  my  legs 
in  a  death-struggle. 

It  came  to  me  that  we  were  at  the  head  of  the  col- 
umn. Half  a  mile  of  it  had  disappeared  —  where  or 
how  I  never  learned.  To  this  day  I  do  not  know  what 
became  of  that  half-mile  of  humanity  —  whether  it  was 
blotted  out  by  some  frightful  bolt  of  war,  whether  it 
was  scattered  and  destroyed  piecemeal,  or  whether  it 
escaped.  But  there  we  were,  at  the  head  of  the  column 
instead  of  in  its  middle,  and  we  were  being  swept  out  of 
life  by  a  torrent  of  shrieking  lead. 

As  soon  as  death  had  thinned  the  jam,  Garthwaite, 
still  grasping  my  arm,  led  a  rush  of  survivors  into  the 
wide  entrance  of  an  office  building.  Here,  at  the  rear, 
against  the  doors,  we  were  pressed  by  a  panting,  gasping 
mass  of  creatures.  For  some  time  we  remained  in  this 
position  without  a  change  in  the  situation. 

"I  did  it  beautifully,"  Garthwaite  was  lamenting  to 
me.  "Ran  you  right  into  a  trap.  We  had  a  gambler's 
chance  in  the  street,  but  in  here  there  is  no  chance  at  all. 
It's  all  over  but  the  shouting.     Vive  la  Revolution  !" 

Then,  what  he  expected,  began.  The  Mercenaries 
were  killing  without  quarter.  At  first,  the  surge  back 
upon  us  was  crushing,  but  as  the  killing  continued  the 
pressure  was  eased.     The  dead  and  dying  went  down 


332  THE  IRON  HEEL 

and  made  room.  Garthwaite  put  his  mouth  to  my  ear 
and  shouted,  but  in  the  frightful  din  I  could  not  catch 
what  he  said.  He  did  not  wait.  He  seized  me  and 
threw  me  down.  Next  he  dragged  a  dying  woman  over 
on  top  of  me,  and,  with  much  squeezing  and  shoving, 
crawled  in  beside  me  and  partly  over  me.  A  mound  of 
dead  and  dying  began  to  pile  up  over  us,  and  over  this 
mound,  pawing  and  moaning,  crept  those  that  still 
survived.  But  these,  too,  soon  ceased,  and  a  semi- 
silence  settled  down,  broken  by  groans  and  sobs  and 
sounds  of  strangulation. 

I  should  have  been  crushed  had  it  not  been  for  Garth- 
waite. As  it  was,  it  seemed  inconceivable  that  I  could 
bear  the  weight  I  did  and  live.  And  yet,  outside  of 
pain,  the  only  feeling  I  possessed  was  one  of  curiosity. 
How  was  it  going  to  end?  What  would  death  be  like ? 
Thus  did  I  receive  my  red  baptism  in  that  Chicago 
shambles.  Prior  to  that,  death  to  me  had  been  a 
theory;  but  ever  afterward  death  has  been  a  simple 
fact  that  does  not  matter,  it  is  so  easy. 

But  the  Mercenaries  were  not  content  with  what  they 
had  done.  They  invaded  the  entrance,  killing  the 
wounded  and  searching  out  the  unhurt  that,  like  our- 
selves, were  playing  dead.  I  remember  one  man  they 
dragged  out  of  a  heap,  who  pleaded  abjectly  until  a 
revolver  shot  cut  him  short.  Then  there  was  a  woman 
who  charged  from  a  heap,  snarling  and  shooting.  She 
fired  six  shots  before  they  got  her,  though  what  dam- 


THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS  333 

age  she  did  we  could  not  know.  We  could  follow  these 
tragedies  only  by  the  sound.  Every  little  while  flur- 
ries like  this  occurred,  each  flurry  culminating  in  the 
revolver  shot  that  put  an  end  to  it.  In  the  intervals  we 
could  hear  the  soldiers  talking  and  swearing  as  they 
rummaged  among  the  carcasses,  urged  on  by  their 
officers  to  hurry  up. 

At  last  they  went  to  work  on  our  heap,  and  we  could 
feel  the  pressure  diminish  as  they  dragged  away  the 
dead  and  wounded.  Garthwaite  began  uttering  aloud 
the  signals.  At  first  he  was  not  heard.  Then  he  raised 
his  voice. 

"Listen  to  that,"  we  heard  a  soldier  say.  And  next 
the  sharp  voice  of  an  officer.  "Hold  on  there  !  Care- 
ful as  you  go  !" 

Oh,  that  first  breath  of  air  as  we  were  dragged  out ! 
Garthwaite  did  the  talking  at  first,  but  I  was  compelled 
to  undergo  a  brief  examination  to  prove  service  with  the 
Iron  Heel. 

"Agents-provocateurs  all  right,"  was  the  officer's 
conclusion.  He  was  a  beardless  young  fellow,  a  cadet, 
evidently,  of  some  great  oligarch  family. 

"It's  a  hell  of  a  job,"  Garthwaite  grumbled.  "I'm 
going  to  try  and  resign  and  get  into  the  army.  You 
fellows  have  a  snap." 

"You've  earned  it,"  was  the  young  officer's  answer. 
"I've  got  some  pull,  and  I'll  see  if  it  can  be  managed. 
I  can  tell  them  how  I  found  you." 


334  THE  IRON  HEEL 

He  took  Garthwaite's  name  and  number,  then  turned 
to  me. 

''And  you?" 

"Oh,  I'm  going  to  be  married,"  I  answered  lightly, 
"and  then  I'll  be  out  of  it  all." 

And  so  we  talked,  while  the  killing  of  the  wounded 
went  on.  It  is  all  a  dream,  now,  as  I  look  back  on  it ; 
but  at  the  time  it  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world.  Garthwaite  and  the  young  officer  fell  into  an 
animated  conversation  over  the  difference  between  so- 
called  modern  warfare  and  the  present  fttreet-fighting 
and  sky-scraper  fighting  that  was  taking  place  all  over 
the  city.  I  followed  them  intently,  fixing  up  my  hair 
at  the  same  time  and  pinning  together  my  torn  skirts. 
And  all  the  time  the  killing  of  the  wounded  went  on. 
Sometimes  the  revolver  shots  drowned  the  voices  of 
Garthwaite  and  the  officer,  and  they  were  compelled 
to  repeat  what  they  had  been  saying. 

I  lived  through  three  days  of  the  Chicago  Commune, 
and  the  vastness  of  it  and  of  the  slaughter  may  be  im- 
agined when  I  say  that  in  all  that  time  I  saw  practically 
nothing  outside  the  killing  of  the  people  of  the  abyss 
and  the  mid-air  fighting  between  sky-scrapers.  I  really 
saw  nothing  of  the  heroic  work  done  by  the  comrades. 
I  could  hear  the  explosions  of  their  mines  and  bombs, 
and  see  the  smoke  of  their  conflagrations,  and  that  was 
all.  The  mid-air  part  of  one  great  deed  I  saw,  however, 
and  that  was  the  balloon  attacks  made  by  our  com- 


THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS       335 

rades  on  the  fortresses.  That  was  on  the  second  day. 
The  three  disloyal  regiments  had  been  destroyed  in 
the  fortresses  to  the  last  man.  The  fortresses  were 
crowded  with  Mercenaries,  the  wind  blew  in  the  right 
direction,  and  up  went  our  balloons  from  one  of  the 
office  buildings  in  the  city. 

Now  Biedenbach,  after  he  left  Glen  Ellen,  had  in- 
vented a  most  powerful  explosive  —  "expedite"  he 
called  it.  This  was  the  weapon  the  balloons  used.  They 
were  only  hot-air  balloons,  clumsily  and  hastily  made, 
but  they  did  the  work.  I  saw  it  all  from  the  top  of  an 
office  building.  The  first  balloon  missed  the  fortresses 
completely  and  disappeared  into  the  country ;  but  we 
learned  about  it  afterward.  Burton  and  O'Sullivan 
were  in  it.  As  they  were  descending  they  swept  across 
a  railroad  directly  over  a  troop-train  that  was  heading 
at  full  speed  for  Chicago.  They  dropped  their  whole 
supply  of  expedite  upon  the  locomotive.  The  result- 
ing wreck  tied  the  line  up  for  days.  And  the  best 
of  it  was  that,  released  from  the  weight  of  expedite, 
the  balloon  shot  up  into  the  air  and  did  not  come  down 
for  half  a  dozen  miles,  both  heroes  escaping  unharmed. 

The  second  balloon  was  a  failure.  Its  flight  was  lame. 
It  floated  too  low  and  was  shot  full  of  holes  before  it 
could  reach  the  fortresses.  Herford  and  Guinness  were 
in  it,  and  they  were  blown  to  pieces  along  with  the 
field  into  which  they  fell.  Biedenbach  was  in  despair  — 
we  heard  all  about  it  afterward  —  and  he  went  up  alone 


336  THE  IRON  HEEL 

in  the  third  balloon.  He,  too,  made  a  low  flight,  but 
he  was  in  luck,  for  they  failed  seriously  to  puncture  his 
balloon.  I  can  see  it  now  as  I  did  then,  from  the  lofty 
top  of  the  building  —  that  inflated  bag  drifting  along 
the  air,  and  that  tiny  speck  of  a  man  clinging  on  be- 
neath. I  could  not  see  the  fortress,  but  those  on  the 
roof  with  me  said  he  was  directly  over  it.  I  did  not 
see  the  expedite  fall  when  he  cut  it  loose.  But  I  did 
see  the  balloon  suddenly  leap  up  into  the  sky.  An 
appreciable  time  after  that  the  great  column  of  the 
explosion  towered  in  the  air,  and  after  that,  in  turn,  I 
heard  the  roar  of  it.  Biedenbach  the  gentle  had  de- 
stroyed a  fortress.  Two  other  balloons  followed  at  the 
same  time.  One  was  blown  to  pieces  in  the  air,  the 
expedite  exploding,  and  the  shock  of  it  disrupted  the 
second  balloon,  which  fell  prettily  into  the  remaining 
fortress.  It  couldn't  have  been  better  planned,  though 
the  two  comrades  in  it  sacrificed  their  lives. 

But  to  return  to  the  people  of  the  abyss.  My  ex- 
periences were  confined  to  them.  They  raged  and 
slaughtered  and  destroyed  all  over  the  city  proper, 
and  were  in  turn  destroyed;  but  never  once  did  they 
succeed  in  reaching  the  city  of  the  oligarchs  over  on 
*he  west  side.  The  oligarchs  had  protected  themselves 
well.  No  matter  what  destruction  was  wreaked  in  the 
heart  of  the  city,  they,  and  their  womenkind  and  chil- 
dren, were  to  escape  hurt.  I  am  told  that  their  chil- 
dren played  in  the  parks  during  those  terrible  days  and 


THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS        337 

that  their  favorite  game  was  an  imitation  of  their  elders 
stamping  upon  the  proletariat. 

But  the  Mercenaries  found  it  no  easy  task  to  cope 
with  the  people  of  the  abyss  and  at  the  same  time  fight 
with  the  comrades.  Chicago  was  true  to  her  tradi- 
tions, and  though  a  generation  of  revolutionists  was 
wiped  out,  it  took  along  with  it  pretty  close  to  a  gen- 
eration of  its  enemies.  Of  course,  the  Iron  Heel  kept 
the  figures  secret,  but,  at  a  very  conservative  estimate, 
at  least  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  Mercenaries 
were  slain.  But  the  comrades  had  no  chance.  Instead 
of  the  whole  country  being  hand  in  hand  in  revolt,  they 
were  all  alone,  and  the  total  strength  of  the  Oligaichy 
could  have  been  directed  against  them  if  necessary. 
As  it  was,  hour  after  hour,  day  after  day,  in  endless 
train-loads,  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  the  Mercenaries 
were  hurled  into  Chicago. 

And  there  were  so  many  of  the  people  of  the  abyss ! 
Tiring  of  the  slaughter,  a  great  herding  movement  was 
begun  by  the  soldiers,  the  intent  of  which  was  to  drive 
the  street  mobs,  like  cattle,  into  Lake  Michigan.  It 
was  at  the  beginning  of  this  movement  that  Garthwaite 
and  I  had  encountered  the  young  officer.  This  herd- 
ing movement  was  practically  a  failure,  thanks  to  the 
splendid  work  of  the  comrades.  Instead  of  the  great 
host  the  Mercenaries  had  hoped  to  gather  together,  they 
succeeded  in  driving  no  more  than  forty  thousand  of 
the  wretches  into  the  lake.     Time  and  again,  when  a 


338  THE  IRON  HEEL 

mob  of  them  was  well  in  hand  and  being  driven  along 
the  streets  to  the  water,  the  comrades  would  create  a 
diversion,  and  the  mob  would  escape  through  the 
consequent  hole  torn  in  the  encircling  net. 

Garthwaite  and  I  saw  an  example  of  this  shortly 
after  meeting  with  the  young  officer.  The  mob  of 
which  we  had  been  a  part,  and  which  had  been  put  in 
retreat,  was  prevented  from  escaping  to  the  south  and 
east  by  strong  bodies  of  troops.  The  troops  we  had 
fallen  in  with  had  held  it  back  on  the  west.  The  only 
outlet  was  north,  and  north  it  went  toward  the  lake, 
driven  on  from  east  and  west  and  south  by  machine-gun 
fire  and  automatics.  Whether  it  divined  that  it  was 
being  driven  toward  the  lake,  or  whether  it  was  merely 
a  blind  squirm  of  the  monster,  I  do  not  know ;  but  at 
any  rate  the  mob  took  a  cross  street  to  the  west,  turned 
down  the  next  street,  and  came  back  upon  its  track, 
heading  south  toward  the  great  ghetto. 

Garthwaite  and  I  at  that  time  were  trying  to  make 
our  way  westward  to  get  out  of  the  territory  of  street- 
fighting,  and  we  were  caught  right  in  the  thick  of  it 
again.  As  we  came  to  the  corner  we  saw  the  howling 
mob  bearing  down  upon  us.  Garthwaite  seized  my 
arm  and  we  were  just  starting  to  run,  when  he  dragged 
me  back  from  in  front  of  the  wheels  of  half  a  dozen  war 
automobiles,  equipped  with  machine-guns,  that  were 
rushing  for  the  spot.  Behind  them  came  the  soldiers 
with  their  automatic  rifles.     By  the  time  they  took 


THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS  339 

position,  the  mob  was  upon  them,  and  it  looked  as 
though  they  would  be  overwhelmed  before  they  could 
get  into  action. 

Here  and  there  a  soldier  was  discharging  his  rifle, 
but  this  scattered  fire  had  no  effect  in  checking  the  mob. 
On  it  came,  bellowing  with  brute  rage.  It  seemed  the 
machine-guns  could  not  get  started.  The  automobiles 
on  which  they  were  mounted  blocked  the  street,  com- 
pelling the  soldiers  to  find  positions  in,  between,  and  on 
the  sidewalks.  More  and  more  soldiers  were  arriving, 
and  in  the  jam  we  were  unable  to  get  away.  Garth- 
waite  held  me  by  the  arm,  and  we  pressed  close  against 
the  front  of  a  building. 

The  mob  was  no  more  than  twenty-five  feet  away 
when  the  machine-guns  opened  up;  but  before  that 
flaming  sheet  of  death  nothing  could  live.  The  mob 
came  on,  but  it  could  not  advance.  It  piled  up  in  a 
heap,  a  mound,  a  huge  and  growing  wave  of  dead  and 
dying.  Those  behind  urged  on,  and  the  column,  from 
gutter  to  gutter,  telescoped  upon  itself.  Wounded 
creatures,  men  and  women,  were  vomited  over  the  top 
of  that  awful  wave  and  fell  squirming  down  the  face 
of  it  till  they  threshed  about  under  the  automobiles 
and  against  the  legs  of  the  soldiers.  The  latter  bayo- 
neted the  struggling  wretches,  though  one  I  saw  who 
gained  his  feet  and  flew  at  a  soldier's  throat  with  his 
teeth.  Together  they  went  down,  soldier  and  slave, 
into  the  welter. 


340  THE  IRON  HEEL 

The  firing  ceased.  The  work  was  done.  The  mob 
had  been  stopped  in  its  wild  attempt  to  break  through. 
Orders  were  being  given  to  clear  the  wheels  of  the  war- 
machines.  They  could  not  advance  over  that  wave  of 
dead,  and  the  idea  was  to  run  them  down  the  cross 
street.  The  soldiers  were  dragging  the  bodies  away 
from  the  wheels  when  it  happened.  We  learned  after- 
ward how  it  happened.  A  block  distant  a  hundred  of 
our  comrades  had  been  holding  a  building.  Across 
roofs  and  through  buildings  they  made  their  way,  till 
they  found  themselves  looking  down  upon  the  close- 
packed  soldiers.     Then  it  was  counter-massacre. 

Without  warning,  a  shower  of  bombs  fell  from  the 
top  of  the  building.  The  automobiles  were  blown  to 
fragments,  along  with  many  soldiers.  We,  with  the 
survivors,  swept  back  in  mad  retreat.  Half  a  block 
down  another  building  opened  fire  on  us.  As  the  sol- 
diers had  carpeted  the  street  with  dead  slaves,  so,  in 
turn,  did  they  themselves  become  carpet.  Garthwaite 
and  I  bore  charmed  lives.  As  we  had  done  before, 
so  again  we  sought  shelter  in  an  entrance.  But  he 
was  not  to  be  caught  napping  this  time.  As  the  roar 
of  the  bombs  died  away,  he  began  peering  out. 

"The  mob's  coming  back!"  he  called  to  me. 
"We've  got  to  get  out  of  this!" 

We  fled,  hand  in  hand,  down  the  bloody  pavement, 
slipping  and  sliding,  and  making  for  the  corner.  Down 
the  cross  street  we  could  see  a  few  soldiers  still  running. 


THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  ABYSS  341 

Nothing  was  happening  to  them.  The  way  was  clear. 
So  we  paused  a  moment  and  looked  back.  The  mob 
came  on  slowly.  It  was  busy  arming  itself  with  the 
rifles  of  the  slain  and  killing  the  wounded.  We  saw 
the  end  of  the  young  officer  who  had  rescued  us.  He 
painfully  lifted  himself  on  his  elbow  and  turned  loose 
with  his  automatic  pistol. 

"There  goes  my  chance  of  promotion,"  Garthwaite 
laughed,  as  a  woman  bore  down  on  the  wounded  man, 
brandishing  a  butcher's  cleaver.  "Come  on.  It's 
the  wrong  direction,  but  we'll  get  out  somehow." 

And  we  fled  eastward  through  the  quiet  streets,  pre- 
pared at  every  cross  street  for  anything  to  happen.  To 
the  south  a  monster  conflagration  was  filling  the  sky, 
and  we  knew  that  the  great  ghetto  was  burning.  At 
last  I  sank  down  on  the  sidewalk.  I  was  exhausted 
and  could  go  no  farther.  I  was  bruised  and  sore  and 
aching  in  every  limb  ;  yet  I  could  not  escape  smiling  at 
Garthwaite,  who  was  rolling  a  cigarette  and  saying : 

"I  know  I'm  making  a  mess  of  rescuing  you,  but  I 
can't  get  head  nor  tail  of  the  situation.  It's  all  a  mess. 
Every  time  we  try  to  break  out,  something  happens  and 
we're  turned  back.  We're  only  a  couple  of  blocks  now 
from  where  I  got  you  out  of  that  entrance.  Friend  and 
foe  are  all  mixed  up.  It's  chaos.  You  can't  tell  who 
is  in  those  darned  buildings.  Try  to  find  out,  and  you 
get  a  bomb  on  your  head.  Try  to  go  peaceably  on  your 
way,  and  you  run  into  a  mob  and  are  killed  by  machine- 


342  THE  IRON  HEEL 

guns,  or  you  run  into  the  Mercenaries  and  are  killed 
by  your  own  comrades  from  a  roof.  And  on  the  top 
of  it  all  the  mob  comes  along  and  kills  you,  too." 

He  shook  his  head  dolefully,  lighted  his  cigarette, 
and  sat  down  beside  me. 

"And  I'm  that  hungry,"  he  added,  "I  could  eat  cob- 
blestones." 

The  next  moment  he  was  on  his  feet  again  and  out 
in  the  street  prying  up  a  cobblestone.  He  came  back 
with  it  and  assaulted  the  window  of  a  store  behind  us. 

"It's  ground  floor  and  no  good,"  he  explained  as  he 
helped  me  through  the  hole  he  had  made;  "but  it's 
the  best  we  can  do.  You  get  a  nap  and  I'll  reconnoitre. 
I'll  finish  this  rescue  all  right,  but  I  want  time,  time, 
lots  of  it  —  and  something  to  eat." 

It  was  a  harness  store  we  found  ourselves  in,  and  he 
fixed  me  up  a  couch  of  horse  blankets  in  the  private 
office  well  to  the  rear.  To  add  to  my  wretchedness  a 
splitting  headache  was  coming  on,  and  I  was  only  too 
glad  to  close  my  eyes  and  try  to  sleep. 

"I'll  be  back,"  were  his  parting  words.  "I  don't 
hope  to  get  an  auto,  but  I'll  surely  bring  some  grub,1 
anyway." 

And  that  was  the  last  I  saw  of  Garthwaite  for  three 
years.  Instead  of  coming  back,  he  was  carried  away 
to  a  hospital  with  a  bullet  through  his  lungs  and  another 
through  the  fleshy  part  of  his  neck. 

1  Food. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

NIGHTMARE 

I  had  not  closed  my  eyes  the  night  before  on  the 
Twentieth  Century,  and  what  of  that  and  of  my  ex- 
haustion I  slept  soundly.  When  I  first  awoke,  it  was 
night.  Garthwaite  had  not  returned.  I  had  lost  my 
watch  and  had  no  idea  of  the  time.  As  I  lay  with  my 
eyes  closed,  I  heard  the  same  dull  sound  of  distant  ex- 
plosions. The  inferno  was  still  raging.  I  crept  through 
the  store  to  the  front.  The  reflection  from  the  sky 
of  vast  conflagrations  made  the  street  almost  as  light 
as  day.  One  could  have  read  the  finest  print  with  ease. 
From  several  blocks  away  came  the  crackle  of  small 
hand-bombs  and  the  churning  of  machine-guns,  and 
from  a  long  way  off  came  a  long  series  of  heavy  explo- 
sions. I  crept  back  to  my  horse  blankets  and  slept 
again. 

When  next  I  awoke,  a  sickly  yellow  light  was  filtering 
in  on  me.  It  was  dawn  of  the  second  day.  I  crept 
to  the  front  of  the  store.  A  smoke  pall,  shot  through 
with  lurid  gleams,  filled  the  sky.     Down  the  opposite 

343 


344  THE  IRON  HEEL 

side  of  the  street  tottered  a  wretched  slave.  One  hand 
he  held  tightly  against  his  side,  and  behind  him  he  left 
a  bloody  trail.  His  eyes  roved  everywhere,  and  they 
were  filled  with  apprehension  and  dread.  Once  he 
looked  straight  across  at  me,  and  in  his  face  was  all  the 
dumb  pathos  of  the  wounded  and  hunted  animal.  He 
saw  me,  but  there  was  no  kinship  between  us,  and  with 
him,  at  least,  no  sympathy  of  understanding ;  for  he 
cowered  perceptibly  and  dragged  himself  on.  He  could 
expect  no  aid  in  all  God's  world.  He  was  a  helot  in 
the  great  hunt  of  helots  that  the  masters  were  making. 
All  he  could  hope  for,  all  he  sought,  was  some  hole  to 
crawl  away  in  and  hide  like  any  animal.  The  sharp 
clang  of  a  passing  ambulance  at  the  corner  gave  him  a 
start.  Ambulances  were  not  for  such  as  he.  With 
a  groan  of  pain  he  threw  himself  into  a  doorway.  A 
minute  later  he  was  out  again  and  desperately  hobbling 
on. 

I  went  back  to  my  horse  blankets  and  waited  an  hour 
for  Garthwaite.  My  headache  had  not  gone  away. 
On  the  contrary,  it  was  increasing.  It  was  by  an  effort 
of  will  only  that  I  was  able  to  open  my  eyes  and  look 
at  objects.  And  with  the  opening  of  my  eyes  and  the 
looking  came  intolerable  torment.  Also,  a  great  pulse 
was  beating  in  my  brain.  Weak  and  reeling,  I  went 
out  through  the  broken  window  and  down  the  street, 
seeking  to  escape,  instinctively  and  gropingly,  from 
the  awful  shambles.     And  thereafter  I  lived  nightmare. 


NIGHTMARE  345 

My  memory  of  what  happened  in  the  succeeding  hours 
is  the  memory  one  would  have  of  nightmare.  Many 
events  are  focussed  sharply  on  my  brain,  but  between 
these  indelible  pictures  I  retain  are  intervals  of  uncon- 
sciousness. What  occurred  in  those  intervals  I  know 
not,  and  never  shall  know. 

I  remember  stumbling  at  the  corner  over  the  legs  of 
a  man.  It  was  the  poor  hunted  wretch  that  had 
dragged  himself  past  my  hiding-place.  How  distinctly 
do  I  remember  his  poor,  pitiful,  gnarled  hands  as  he  lay 
there  on  the  pavement — hands  that  were  more  hoof  and 
claw  than  hands,  all  twisted  and  distorted  by  the  toil 
of  all  his  days,  with  on  the  palms  a  horny  growth 
of  callous  a  half  inch  thick.  And  as  I  picked  myself 
up  and  started  on,  I  looked  into  the  face  of  the  thing 
and  saw  that  it  still  lived ;  for  the  eyes,  dimly  intelli- 
gent, were  looking  at  me  and  seeing  me. 

After  that  came  a  kindly  blank.  I  knew  nothing, 
saw  nothing,  merely  tottered  on*in  my  quest  for  safety. 
My  next  nightmare  vision  was  a  quiet  street  of  the 
dead.  I  came  upon  it  abruptly,  as  a  wanderer  in  the 
country  would  come  upon  a  flowing  stream.  Only  this 
stream  I  gazed  upon  did  not  flow.  It  was  congealed 
in  death.  From  pavement  to  pavement,  and  covering 
the  sidewalks,  it  lay  there,  spread  out  quite  evenly, 
with  only  here  and  there  a  lump  or  mound  of  bodies 
to  break  the  surface.  Poor  driven  people  of  the  abyss, 
hunted  helots  —  they  lay  there  as  the  rabbits  in  Cali- 


346  THE  IRON  HEEL 

fornia  after  a  drive.1  Up  the  street  and  down  I  looked. 
There  was  no  movement,  no  sound.  The  quiet  build- 
ings looked  down  upon  the  scene  from  their  many  win- 
dows. And  once,  and  once  only,  I  saw  an  arm  that 
moved  in  that  dead  stream.  I  swear  I  saw  it  move, 
with  a  strange  writhing  gesture  of  agony,  and  with  it 
lifted  a  head,  gory  with  nameless  horror,  that  gibbered 
at  me  and  then  lay  down  again  and  moved  no  more. 
I  remember  another  street,  with  quiet  buildings  on 
either  side,  and  the  panic  that  smote  me  into  conscious- 
ness as  again  I  saw  the  people  of  the  abyss,  but  this  time 
in  a  stream  that  flowed  and  came  on.  And  then  I  saw 
there  was  nothing  to  fear.  The  stream  moved  slowly, 
while  from  it  arose  groans  and  lamentations,  cursings, 
babblings  of  senility,  hysteria,  and  insanity ;  for  these 
were  the  very  young  and  the  very  old,  the  feeble  and  the 
sick,  the  helpless  and  the  hopeless,  all  the  wreckage 
of  the  ghetto.  The  burning  of  the  great  ghetto  on  the 
South  Side  had  driven  them  forth  into  the  inferno  of 
the  street-fighting,  and  whither  they  wended  and  what- 
ever became  of  them  I  did  not  know  and  never  learned.2 

1  In  those  days,  so  sparsely  populated  was  the  land  that  wild  ani- 
mals often  became  pests.  In  California  the  custom  of  rabbit-driving 
obtained.  On  a  given  day  all  the  farmers  in  a  locality  would  assemble 
and  sweep  across  the  country  in  converging  lines,  driving  the  rabbits 
by  scores  of  thousands  into  a  prepared  enclosure,  where  they  were 
clubbed  to  death  by  men  and  boys. 

2  It  was  long  a  question  of  debate,  whether  the  burning  of  the  South 
Side  ghetto  was  accidental,  or  whether  it  was  done  by  the  Mercenaries ; 
but  it  is  definitely  settled  now  that  the  ghetto  was  fired  by  the  Mer- 
cenaries under  orders  from  their  chiefs. 


NIGHTMARE  347 

I  have  faint  memories  of  breaking  a  window  and 
hiding  in  some  shop  to  escape  a  street  mob  that  was 
pursued  by  soldiers.  Also,  a  bomb  burst  near  me, 
once,  in  some  still  street,  where,  look  as  I  would,  up 
and  down,  I  could  see  no  human  being.  But  my  next 
sharp  recollection  begins  with  the  crack  of  a  rifle  and  an 
abrupt  becoming  aware  that  I  am  being  fired  at  by  a 
soldier  in  an  automobile.  The  shot  missed,  and  the 
next  moment  I  was  screaming  and  motioning  the  sig- 
nals. My  memory  of  riding  in  the  automobile  is  very 
hazy,  though  this  ride,  in  turn,  is  broken  by  one  vivid 
picture.  The  crack  of  the  rifle  of  the  soldier  sitting 
beside  me  made  me  open  my  eyes,  and  I  saw  George 
Milford,  whom  I  had  known  in  the  Pell  Street  days, 
sinking  slowly  down  to  the  sidewalk.  Even  as  he  sank 
the  soldier  fired  again,  and  Milford  doubled  in,  then 
flung  his  body  out,  and  fell  sprawling.  The  soldier 
chuckled,  and  the  automobile  sped  on. 

The  next  I  knew  after  that  I  was  awakened  out  of 
a  sound  sleep  by  a  man  who  walked  up  and  down  close 
beside  me.  His  face  was  drawn  and  strained,  and  the 
sweat  rolled  down  his  nose  from  his  forehead.  One 
hand  was  clutched  tightly  against  his  chest  by  the 
other  hand,  and  blood  dripped  down  upon  the  floor  as 
he  walked.  He  wore  the  uniform  of  the  Mercenaries. 
From  without,  as  through  thick  walls,  came  the  muffled 
roar  of  bursting  bombs.  I  was  in  some  building  that 
was  locked  in  combat  with  some  other  building. 


348  THE  IRON  HEEL 

A  surgeon  came  in  to  dress  the  wounded  soldier,  and 
I  learned  that  it  was  two  in  the  afternoon.  My  head- 
ache was  no  better,  and  the  surgeon  paused  from  his 
work  long  enough  to  give  me  a  powerful  drug  that  would 
depress  the  heart  and  bring  relief.  I  slept  again,  and 
the  next  I  knew  I  was  on  top  of  the  building.  The 
immediate  fighting  had  ceased,  and  I  was  watching  the 
balloon  attack  on  the  fortresses.  Some  one  had  an 
arm  around  me  and  I  was  leaning  close  against  him. 
It  came  to  me  quite  as  a  matter  of  course  that  this  was 
Ernest,  and  I  found  myself  wondering  how  he  had  got 
his  hair  and  eyebrows  so  badly  singed. 

It  was  by  the  merest  chance  that  we  had  found  each 
other  in  that  terrible  city.  He  had  had  no  idea  that 
I  had  left  New  York,  and,  coming  through  the  room 
where  I  lay  asleep,  could  not  at  first  believe  that  it  was 
I.  Little  more  I  saw  of  the  Chicago  Commune.  After 
watching  the  balloon  attack,  Ernest  took  me  down 
into  the  heart  of  the  building,  where  I  slept  the  after- 
noon out  and  the  night.  The  third  day  we  spent  in  the 
building,  and  on  the  fourth,  Ernest  having  got  per- 
mission and  an  automobile  from  the  authorities,  we 
left  Chicago. 

My  headache  was  gone,  but,  body  and  soul,  I  was  very 
tired.  I  lay  back  against  Ernest  in  the  automobile, 
and  with  apathetic  eyes  watched  the  soldiers  trying 
to  get  the  machine  out  of  the  city.  Fighting  was  still 
going  on,   but  only  in  isolated  localities.     Here  and 


NIGHTMARE  349 

there  whole  districts  were  still  in  possession  of  the  com- 
rades, but  such  districts  were  surrounded  and  guarded 
by  heavy  bodies  of  troops.  In  a  hundred  segregated 
traps  were  the  comrades  thus  held  while  the  work  of 
subjugating  them  went  on.  Subjugation  meant  death, 
for  no  quarter  was  given,  and  they  fought  heroically 
to  the  last  man.1 

Whenever  we  approached  such  localities,  the  guards 
turned  us  back  and  sent  us  around.  Once,  the  only 
way  past  two  strong  positions  of  the  comrades  was 
through  a  burnt  section  that  lay  between.  From  either 
side  we  could  hear  the  rattle  and  roar  of  war,  while  the 
automobile  picked  its  way  through  smoking  ruins  and 
tottering  walls.  Often  the  streets  were  blocked  by 
mountains  of  debris  that  compelled  us  to  go  around. 
We  were  in  a  labyrinth  of  ruin,  and  our  progress  was 
slow. 

The  stockyards  (ghetto,  plant,  and  everything)  were 
smouldering  ruins.  Far  off  to  the  right  a  wide  smoke 
haze  dimmed  the  sky,  —  the  town  of  Pullman,  the  sol- 
dier chauffeur  told  us,  or  what  had  been  the  town  of 
Pullman,  for  it  was  utterly  destroyed.     He  had  driven 

1  Numbers  of  the  buildings  held  out  over  a  week,  while  one  held 
out  eleven  days.  Each  building  had  to  be  stormed  like  a  fort,  and  the 
Mercenaries  fought  their  way  upward  floor  by  floor.  It  was  deadly 
fighting.  Quarter  was  neither  given  nor  taken,  and  in  the  fighting 
the  revolutionists  had  the  advantage  of  being  above.  While  the  revo- 
lutionists were  wiped  out,  the  loss  was  not  one-sided.  The  proud 
Chicago  proletariat  lived  up  to  its  ancient  boast.  For  as  many  of  itself 
as  were  killed,  it  killed  that  many  of  the  enemy. 


350  THE  IRON  HEEL 

the  machine  out  there,  with  despatches,  on  the  after- 
noon of  the  third  day.  Some  of  the  heaviest  fighting 
had  occurred  there,  he  said,  many  of  the  streets  being 
rendered  impassable  by  the  heaps  of  the  dead. 

Swinging  around  the  shattered  walls  of  a  building, 
in  the  stockyards  district,  the  automobile  was  stopped 
by  a  wave  of  dead.  It  was  for  all  the  world  like  a 
wave  tossed  up  b}7-  the  sea.  It  was  patent  to  us  what 
had  happened.  As  the  mob  charged  past  the  corner, 
it  had  been  swept,  at  right  angles  and  point-blank 
range,  by  the  machine-guns  drawn  up  on  the  cross 
street.  But  disaster  had  come  to  the  soldiers.  A 
chance  bomb  must  have  exploded  among  them,  for 
the  mob,  checked  until  its  dead  and  dying  formed  the 
wave,  had  white-capped  and  flung  forward  its  foam 
of  living,  fighting  slaves.  Soldiers  and  slaves  lay  to- 
gether, torn  and  mangled,  around  and  over  the  wreck- 
age of  the  automobiles  and  guns. 

Ernest  sprang  out.  A  familiar  pair  of  shoulders  in 
a  cotton  shirt  and  a  familiar  fringe  of  white  hair  had 
caught  his  eye.  I  did  not  watch  him,  and  it  was  not 
until  he  was  back  beside  me  and  we  were  speeding 
on  that  he  said : 

"It  was  Bishop  Morehouse." 

Soon  we  were  in  the  green  country,  and  I  took  one 
last  glance  back  at  the  smoke-filled  sky.  Faint  and 
far  came  the  low  thud  of  an  explosion.  Then  I  turned 
my  face  against  Ernest's  breast  and  wept  softly  for 


NIGHTMARE  351 

the  Cause  that  was  lost.  Ernest's  arm  about  me  was 
eloquent  with  love. 

"For  this  time  lost,  dear  heart,"  he  said,  "but  not 
forever.  We  have  learned.  To-morrow  the  Cause  will 
rise  again,  strong  with  wisdom  and  discipline." 

The  automobile  drew  up  at  a  railroad  station.  Here 
we  would  catch  a  train  to  New  York.  As  we  waited 
on  the  platform,  three  trains  thundered  past,  bound 
west  to  Chicago.  They  were  crowded  with  ragged, 
unskilled  laborers,  people  of  the  abyss. 

"Slave-levies  for  the  rebuilding  of  Chicago,"  Ernest 
said.     "You  see,  the  Chicago  slaves  are  all  killed." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  TERRORISTS 

It  was  not  until  Ernest  and  I  were  back  in  New  York, 
and  after  weeks  had  elapsed,  that  we  were  able  to 
comprehend  thoroughly  the  full  sweep  of  the  disaster 
that  had  befallen  the  Cause.  The  situation  was  bitter 
and  bloody.  In  many  places,  scattered  over  the  coun- 
try, slave  revolts  and  massacres  had  occurred.  The  roll 
of  the  martyrs  increased  mightily.  Countless  execu- 
tions took  place  everywhere.  The  mountains  and  waste 
regions  were  filled  with  outlaws  and  refugees  who  were 
being  hunted  down  mercilessly.  Our  own  refuges 
were  packed  with  comrades  who  had  prices  on  their 
heads.  Through  information  furnished  by  its  spies, 
scores  of  our  refuges  were  raided  by  the  soldiers  of  the 
Iron  Heel. 

Many  of  the  comrades  were  disheartened,  and  they 
retaliated  with  terroristic  tactics.  The  set-back  to 
their  hopes  made  them  despairing  and  desperate. 
Many    terrorist    organizations    unaffiliated    with     us 

352 


THE  TERRORISTS  353 

sprang  into  existence  and  caused  us  much  trouble.1 
These  misguided  people  sacrificed  their  own  lives 
wantonly,  very  often  made  our  own  plans  go  astray, 
and  retarded  our  organization. 

And  through  it  all  moved  the  Iron  Heel,  impassive 
and  deliberate,  shaking  up  the  whole  fabric  of  the  social 
structure  in  its  search  for  the  comrades,  combing  out 
the  Mercenaries,  the  labor  castes,  and  all  its  secret 
services,  punishing  without  mercy  and  without  malice, 
suffering  in  silence  all  retaliations  that  were  made  upon 
it,  and  filling  the  gaps  in  its  fighting  line  as  fast  as  they 
appeared.  And  hand  in  hand  with  this,  Ernest  and 
the  other  leaders  were  hard  at  work  reorganizing  the 

1  The  annals  of  this  short-lived  era  of  despair  make  bloody  reading. 
Revenge  was  the  ruling  motive,  and  the  members  of  the  terroristic 
organizations  were  careless  of  their  own  lives  and  hopeless  about  the 
future.  The  Danites,  taking  their  name  from  the  avenging  angels  of 
the  Mormon  mythology,  sprang  up  in  the  mountains  of  the  Great 
West  and  spread  over  the  Pacific  Coast  from  Panama  to  Alaska. 
The  Valkyries  were  women.  They  were  the  most  terrible  of  all.  No 
woman  was  eligible  for  membership  who  had  not  lost  near  relatives 
at  the  hands  of  the  Oligarchy.  They  were  guilty  of  torturing  their 
prisoners  to  death.  Another  famous  organization  of  women  was  The 
Widows  of  War.  A  companion  organization  to  the  Valkyries  was  the 
Berserkers.  These  men  placed  no  value  whatever  upon  their  own 
lives,  and  it  was  they  who  totally  destroyed  the  great  Mercenary 
city  of  Bellona  along  with  its  population  of  over  a  hundred  thousand 
souls.  The  Bedlamites  and  the  Helldamites  were  twin  slave  organiza- 
tions, while  a  new  religious  sect  that  did  not  flourish  long  was  called 
The  Wrath  of  God.  Among  others,  to  show  the  whimsicality  of  their 
deadly  seriousness,  may  be  mentioned  the  following :  The  Bleeding 
Hearts,  Sons  of  the  Morning,  the  Morning  Stars,  The  Flamingoes, 
The  Triple  Triangles,  The  Three  Bars,  The  Rubonics,  The  Vindicators, 
The  Comanches.  and  The  Erebusites. 
2a 


354  THE  IRON  HEEL 

forces  of  the  Revolution.     The  magnitude  of  the  task 
may  be  understood  when  it  is  taken  into  l 

1  This  is  the  end  of  the  Everhard  Manuscript.  It  breaks  off 
abruptly  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence.  She  must  have  received  warning 
of  the  coming  of  the  Mercenaries,  for  she  had  time  safely  to  hide  the 
Manuscript  before  she  fled  or  was  captured.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that 
she  did  not  live  to  complete  her. narrative,  for  then,  undoubtedly, 
would  have  been  cleared  away  the  mystery  that  has  shrouded  for 
seven  centuries  the  execution  of  Ernest  Everhard. 


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